Laurie Garrett: Ebola Has Gotten So Bad, It’s Normal
Read about what may well end up killing you, Dear Reader, right here.
A nice little taste:
The epidemic has already transformed from what last summer was a remote, rural phenomenon to an urban mess in Beni (population 232,000) and Butembo (estimated to have around a million residents)—both bustling trade cities that are densely populated and located along a highway that parallels the Ugandan border and Semliki River. Farther south along the highway are two pivotal metropolises, Goma and Bukavu, each with a million residents, bordering Rwanda and Lake Kivu. Were Ebola to reach these cities, a top WHO official told me, “all bets are off,” for stopping the epidemic.
A nice little taste:
The epidemic has already transformed from what last summer was a remote, rural phenomenon to an urban mess in Beni (population 232,000) and Butembo (estimated to have around a million residents)—both bustling trade cities that are densely populated and located along a highway that parallels the Ugandan border and Semliki River. Farther south along the highway are two pivotal metropolises, Goma and Bukavu, each with a million residents, bordering Rwanda and Lake Kivu. Were Ebola to reach these cities, a top WHO official told me, “all bets are off,” for stopping the epidemic.
I just read The Hot Zone, from 1994. Nothing I didn't know, generally speaking, but with the details and the narrative, even after factoring out journo-novelistic elements, sheer horror.
Not much, but some, has changed since then.
Nowhere near as important as whether Uncle Joe rubbed shoulders too much, I know, but, still--for a disease that has around a 60% kill rate and could go pandemic the second we fuck up, as we may well be doing right now--this minute--in Africa.
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