Senate Zika Virus: Tomorrow's Children of Men Scenario... TODAY!

http://www.cdc.gov/zika/

Transmitted by mosquitos, without cure or vaccine. It's largely uncomfortable and there's nothing you can do, but it passes quickly and then you're all set....

... unless you're pregnant.

It's now spread from South America, to Central America / Mexico, the Caribbean, Puerto Rico, etc.

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-35399403 (WHO says it'll hit North America)
http://time.com/4195372/zika-denmark-south-america-europe/ (First Euro case [Denmark])
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-of-zika-virus-and-other-infectious-diseases/ (Climate Change is bad, mmm'kay!)

Paging Rylo Ken

 

I was at a dinner over the weekend, and friends told me they had changed vacation plans from Florida to Northern California because one of the people they were traveling with was trying to get pregnant and didn't want to risk exposure to the Zika virus.

As far as I know, no virus-bearing mosquitoes have been found in Florida. Maybe they've been tracking the spread of the virus and have projected a virus arrival date that would have coincided with their own arrival date in Florida.

As far as birth defects go, this is almost more alarming, because the cause remains unknown:

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/65/wr/mm6502a2.htm

Unlike zika, this is already happening in the U.S.

in general:

 

I keep getting constant updates about Zika from my professor. This virus is no joke.

 

I know. We'll build a 2,000 mile mosquito net along the U.S. - Mexican border, and we'll make the Mexicans pay for it.

 

Nah I say we put out a temporary ban on mosquitos until we figure it out.

 

BBC News reported three British people have caught the virus following travel to the affected areas. Note - image of baby with microcephaly in the article.

 

I'm actually at a conference right now where the next presentation is going to be about zika. it should be interesting; even though i work in this field i hadn't heard of this until a few weeks ago, it's like it came out of nowhere.

 

I'm not in the field but it's much the same here - a few recent news articles and now it seems to be everywhere. And the Olympics are in Rio this year as well. I've read that pregnant women are being cautioned against going to the Games.

 

Or you're terrible in your field!

 

It was only a matter of time....

 

Mother nature is seeking revenge for cutting down all those trees in the Amazon.

 

My recommendation: Fire- and lots of it!

 

New WHO warning:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ng-explosively-says-world-health-organisation

 

New disease that will only affect a handful of Westerners but will nonetheless cause Westerners to panic. I hope there are blanket travel bans, or is that only reserved for sub-Saharan Africa?

 

You didn't happen to be in Apocalypse Now did you?

 

Have we reached "we're all going to die" level, yet?

 

Just all of the babies.

 

there's actually more grounds for worry here than there is with most mosquito-borne diseases. it's already demonstrated a number of properties that are pretty unusual for an arbovirus; for one it's been found in a broader variety of species than is most viruses (like dengue and west nile) are and seems to be able to jump species (so far IIRC only within the same genus) way more easily than is typical. also it doesn't appear to be limited to mosquitoes for transmission; apparently it's already been confirmed that blood transfusions can carry it and there are so far at least two instances of it being transmitted sexually via seminal fluid, one in iirc Brazil and the other in Colorado. This is, again, really really unusual for an arbovirus and would allow it to spread far beyond typical mosquito habitats, and since the illness is usually asymptomatic in adults there's huge potential for carriers to unwittingly spread it around.

like, it's definitely too soon to panic or whatever, this thing has only been studied in any depth for less than a decade and it's only in the past like six months that the connection to microcephaly has been found and we still don't know what the causal relationship is but the numbers i was seeing yesterday were like, pretty alarming.

 

Evacuate everyone to Canada. It's the only way to be sure.

 

well i think the obvious solution is for people to stop having babies.

it would solve everything in the long run anyway. just give it 80 or so years.

 

Which is worse: microcephaly or hydrocephaly?

 

True. We're only 7.5 years away from 8 billion people. There is nothing the world needs more than the death of 7 billion people within the next 7.5 years. Even reducing the birth rate to zero for the next 7.5 years and allowing people to die of natural causes would only reduce the population by about 500,000,000. I'd propose a five year moratorium on births plus a non nuclear world war lasting 10 years plus a genetically engineered virus that kills 80% of everyone over the age of 50.

 

I just want to say that I never found Children of Men to be entertaining and fell asleep several different times.

 

Needed more Will Smith, instead of Chiwetel Ejiofor.