The Zika virus. It's coming here. Soon. I think a lady in Virginia who travelled abroad tested positive for it. The concern now is that the typical mosquito may be able to transmit the virus.


Are we going to see Ebola-like paranoia? Is the U.S. just going to be like "oh, this might effect us? We have a cure now". How far will this spread, and how much of an impact will it have? What are your predictions on how this will play out? Will this morph into a zombie plague?

1/28/2016 2:51:55 PM

If we don't control the population, reduce resource use then mother nature will. Its inevitable.

[Edited on January 28, 2016 at 2:57 PM. Reason : or maybe I should go back to that shit you aren't supposed to say thread]

1/28/2016 2:56:54 PM

1/28/2016 2:57:12 PM

1/28/2016 2:59:35 PM

Problem with Zika, unlike ebola, is that the hosts doesn't become incapacitated/die, they go about their business mostly normally to continue spreading it.

But for north america, it's easy to avoid mosquitos, which my understanding is the ONLY way it spreads-- it doesn't spread with normal human contact.

1/28/2016 4:45:10 PM

^They don't know yet. There is some indication that it could be sexually transmitted.

Another reason to stay away from S.C.



[Edited on January 28, 2016 at 4:51 PM. Reason : map]

1/28/2016 4:47:04 PM

Quote :

"But for north america, it's easy to avoid mosquitos"

huh? what in the god damn hell are you talking about?

1/28/2016 6:19:50 PM

SARS!

1/28/2016 6:24:03 PM

this virus isn't a killer and only affects like 20% of the known people who get it. whats the big deal?

btw, ebola isn't even that deadly with modern healthcare

[Edited on January 28, 2016 at 6:58 PM. Reason : nvm i just realized it harms fetuses]

1/28/2016 6:42:26 PM

it'll be just like the ebola debacle. there will be a lot of hand-wringing and bullshit in the media. then a new story will come along and it will just disappear and we'll forget what the media was distracting us from.

1/28/2016 6:56:13 PM

This week Trump will vow to build a giant mosquito net on the border if he's elected.

[Edited on January 28, 2016 at 7:51 PM. Reason : These Immigrant mosquitoes just spread disease and steal blood from hard working American mosquitoes]

1/28/2016 7:51:09 PM

Genetically modified mosquitoes, time to introduce them to the US

http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2016/01/28/zika-virus-mosquitoes-lab.cnnmoney/index.html

1/28/2016 8:27:13 PM

Case reported in Boston. Where I live.

1/28/2016 10:40:44 PM

1. Zika has shown up all across the western hemisphere, but only babies in Brazil are showing birth defects. The problems are not necessarily 100% related to Zika.

2. Americans, especially ones in a position to take preemptive measure against Zika, don't need to have babies. We have too many babies as it is.

1/29/2016 12:10:38 AM

just don't interact with skanks in your daily life.

/problem.

1/29/2016 1:44:08 AM

is zika dangerous? i thought it was just flu-like. nothing major?

1/29/2016 9:49:50 AM

They've linked it to infants being born with abnormally small heads, who often die.

1/29/2016 9:58:36 AM

Quote :

"Genetically modified mosquitoes, time to introduce them to the US"

genetically modified mosquitos were already released in the only place where zika is causing microcephaly

1/29/2016 10:03:48 AM

allegedly causing microcephaly

1/29/2016 10:26:51 AM

Quote :

"is zika dangerous? i thought it was just flu-like. nothing major?"

It has been linked to Gillian-Barre, but the major concern is the microcephaly. El Salvador has warned it's citizens not to get pregnant for the next 2 years!! I know the genius of TWW would love to see that, but a two year moratorium on births is not a good thing.

1/29/2016 10:39:09 AM

oh. so this is mother nature putting the human species in its place then. noted.

1/29/2016 2:59:52 PM

to add to how much it sucks, abortion is not legal in Brazil, women have even been prosecuted for miscarrying

1/29/2016 3:34:24 PM

^Disingenuous.

Abortion is allowed for some medical conditions. Microcephaly is not one of those medical conditions (for now), but they are considering it.

1/29/2016 4:14:32 PM

^Disingenuous.

The only health conditions are if the mothers life is at risk. Also rape. There is a petition by people, but it is not being considered by the government and the experts do not think it is likely to change because it does not put the mothers life at risk.

[Edited on January 29, 2016 at 5:29 PM. Reason : God wanted these children, and he wanted them with tiny heads and brain lesions! ]

1/29/2016 5:28:42 PM

So it is available in some situations, like I said. Thanks for agreeing.

1/29/2016 5:57:53 PM

why is a moratorium on births for 2 years a bad thing? Even if there were no births for longer than that, there are still plenty of people.

1/29/2016 9:24:46 PM

^whoa, buddy. don't try to put the squeeze on the govt's cash cow. those babies will grow up to be taxpayers.

1/29/2016 9:51:58 PM

2 years with no babies would do wonders for a country like that and be one helluva social case study for the rest of the world.

1/30/2016 7:17:55 PM

^ the majority of countries on the planet would suffer negative side effects from a sudden population drop like that. Teachers would be put out of a job and any business that caters to children would suffer. Less births means a smaller worker pool too which means higher labor costs or a labor shortage, which could push more automation having a ripple effect to subsequent generations.

There's no good to come from an unplanned halt in population growth.

1/31/2016 7:59:58 AM

No births for 2 years doesnt halt population growth at the age levels you are talking about. You have to think about population momentum which is very high in latin america.

In 2 years there would not be any 1 or 2 year olds but childcare isnt tiered that specifically in a country like that. The work force would continue to grow at an increasing rate for another 14 years.

Teachers would not be put out of work because schools are already overcrowded. When the ghost children turn 5 and 6 early elementary teachers could focus on 7 and 8 year olds who didnt get adequate attention in overcrowded schools. This shift could continue and you would end up with better quality education.

Tax revenue and workers would increase because babies do not work, they just keep mothers from working. The work pool would grow immediately and decrease in 14 years. Nothing about this would be "an unplanned halt to population growth"


Consider a chart like the uganda graph. All we are doing is making one age group half the size of whay it would have been. In 4 years there would still be people of that age group, the bar would be smaller than the bottom bar but the number of 0-4 year olds would still be larger than the age group of retiring workers they are replacing.

What you are talking about might be true for a european country with a different population momentum but certainly not for a country with a high birth rate.

The problems in a country like guatamala are the opposite of what youre talking about.

Not enough teachers
Not enough schools
Overcrowded hospitals
Each generation much larger than the previous
Not enough jobs
Etc.

Sure some hoghly specialized businesses that can only sale thing to people within a 2 year age group would suffer but i dont know of many like that in guatamala. Things like formula and bottles are mostly imported

[Edited on January 31, 2016 at 9:38 AM. Reason : This wouldnt fox those problems but would mitigate them for a few years. ]

1/31/2016 9:26:25 AM

Quote :

" But the connections are still very tentative. Of the 4,180 suspected cases of microcephaly, only 270 have been confirmed (462 have been rejected), and only six of those are confirmed to be related to Zika, according to Brazil’s most recent bulletin on the situation. Testing for Zika is complicated (there is no rapid test, and the virus may not stay in the body long enough to be detected in many of the cases), so it may be that more of those cases of microcephaly had Zika than can be confirmed. But some experts have questioned whether there has been an increase in microcephaly and GBS, or just an increase in detection. Several in-depth studies are currently underway in Brazil to establish whether there is in fact a link. "

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/zikas-not-a-global-health-emergency-its-potential-consequences-are/?ex_cid=538twitter

2/1/2016 7:03:16 PM

The problem has nothing to do with population and everything to do with resource use. I don't subscribe to the 'limited resources' chreod. If a rich baby born in Manhattan used as little resources as a baby born in Uganda over the course of their life then this line of thinking might make sense. Really what's happening is that the resources that should be shared evenly across the entire population are concentrated in areas where they are not being used to benefit the mass. Believing that any issue is caused where the issue is seen is an assumption.

2/2/2016 1:10:35 PM

Let me know when it really starts to affect white people. Then I'll start to care.

2/2/2016 1:12:06 PM

Let me know when terrorism really starts to affect me. Then I'll start to care

2/2/2016 1:14:04 PM

there are a lot of mosquito eradication programs in place for this kind of thing in the US


the question is, does Brazil (and the other countries affected) have infrastructure/resources to accomplish it?

2/2/2016 6:08:14 PM

So, Texas has reported the first case in the U.S. Of the Zika virus being transmitted sexually

2/2/2016 8:10:07 PM

^^ yes, they do

its not hard to control mosquitoes if you are okay with the short term consequences

2/2/2016 8:46:10 PM

ddtownral

2/2/2016 8:51:45 PM

So maybe this was a bit overblown after all:

Quote :

"The number of Brazilian newborns with a rare birth disorder the World Health Organization suspects is linked to the Zika virus may be lower than earlier feared, Health Ministry data show."

http://www.wsj.com/articles/rate-of-zika-related-birth-defects-in-brazil-uncertain-1454605944?mod=rss_Health

2/4/2016 6:15:18 PM

yea I mean they can go the cheap route and DDT the fuck out of everything, or they can start a sterile male release program.

Both have effective outcomes when dealing with mosquitoes, NBD for America

2/6/2016 11:53:16 PM

They have already been doing sterile release

2/7/2016 9:03:01 AM

DDT and wipe them all out

I'll save $ from not buying OFF all summer

2/7/2016 11:21:39 AM

What about the animals who depend on mosquitos as a food source?

2/7/2016 11:30:59 AM

like your mom?

2/7/2016 11:46:43 AM

the human arrogance of suggesting damaging an ecosystem for convenience. DDT in Brazil would be ecologically devastating. All this because you think god will be upset if you use birth control.

2/7/2016 1:44:26 PM

you can recover from DDT, you just have to weight that damage against the good. For as maligned as DDT is in this country, it's the reason we can all live in the south and not worry about malaria even though it used to affect millions of americans. The banning of DDT was done because of political reasons and not good policy (which is why it was later unbanned and regulated) and led to hundred of millions of unnecessary infections. Today the WHO actually promotes DDT use.

[Edited on February 7, 2016 at 1:55 PM. Reason : .]

2/7/2016 1:54:46 PM

^^^ what the damn hell?!

2/9/2016 3:07:50 PM

Quote :

"What about the animals who depend on mosquitos as a food source?"

there is nothing that depends exclusively or requires mosquitoes as part of their diet

^^I thought we decided DDT was bad for different parts of the food chain with stores of it being found the higher up the chain you go, hence the problems we faced with avians back "in the good old" days?

and the WHO suggests it for places where other controls don't work and these viruses are rampant

2/9/2016 5:34:09 PM

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2016/02/14/brazilian-state-suspends-larvicide-used-to-combat-zika-virus/

seems like it might be the chemical used to kill the mosquitos causing small heads, not Zika virus...

[Edited on February 15, 2016 at 12:05 AM. Reason : ]

2/15/2016 12:04:49 AM

Quote :

"foxnews.com"

2/15/2016 12:21:46 AM