#(160731-)
1 Law - Public Health. 2 Flood - Health. 3 Drought - Migration. 4 Zika - Synergy. 5 DomPrep Journal. 6 Prison - Disease. 7 Finances - Health. 8 Games - Health Hazards. 9 Anthrax - Rumor. 10 Law - Anti-vax. 11 Containment Lessons.
1. Using the Law to Prepare for Global Health Emergencies. Countries need to be prepared to handle emergencies. Having the right laws in place is an important part of the preparation. When laws are not clearly defined, responders can have a hard time figuring out what to do during a public health emergency and who has the authority to take action. When a deadly disease outbreak hits, this can have devastating consequences. Another typical feature in disasters is that lag in social areas, such as law, become apparent. It is possible due to the slowness of biodisaster to keep up with changes, but unfortunately the larger society doesn’t keep up with adapting to slow biodisaster and therefore law lags also. Usually what happens is when there is an acceleration and crisis laws are hastily formed – unless someone anticipated that such laws would eventually be needed and have time to craft effective ones – and then afterwards the area is neglected again.
1.1. Iraq: The Supreme Committee's Plan to Control Bird Flu. The contradictory and often confused reporting on avian flu continues to come out of Iraq over this weekend with denials being published almost as quickly as reports of new outbreaks. While the actual situation on the ground remains murky, we do have an announcement today from the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers on steps ordered in order to contain bird flu [Cartoon]. Among other things the statement indicates a very weak government, unstable society, lack of resilience to weather disaster, none of these being exactly a surprise. ¶ Have noted that neighboring Iran also has scanty information about avian flu, but at least is not being contradictory by having a consistent silence on the topic Iran, Bird Flu News though this can be an artifact of state controlled media or that negative reports are not usually made. The threat of avian flu in the area has been known since at least 2005, Birds May Spread Bird Flu along Flyways. Central Asian Flyway [Map] which is overlapped by the East Asia/East Africa Flyway [Map].
1.2. Armed Conflict Risks Enhanced by Climate Related Disasters in Ethnically Fractionalized Countries. This is a chicken or egg argument, meaning it is a misframed problem where two complete different perspectives interpret the same data differently and incorrectly. In this case evolutionists and creationists who use the same terminology, but don’t recognize that each defines the terms differently, and may not even understand their own position. What is armed conflict, what is climate related disaster, what is ethnically fractionalized countries and didn’t these internal conflicts and inequity precede the climate disaster and then the war. I assume that ethnic conflict results in climate disaster is absurd.
A. There does seem to be a correlation of already unstable countries being even more unstable after a disaster during the short span of the last 30 years, but does it hold true for 300, 3000 years, and there are exceptions such as Bosnian Genocide and the Darfur Genocide. The study also did not compare disasters that preceded responses of altruism and cooperation in unstable, factional countries.
B. Biodisaster again differs from the geodisasters in this regard. War (even cold ones) appear to have consequences during and afterwards that are biodisasters, while this study indicates that geodisasters proceed conflicts, or is it the loss a resources for living, or an division where both sides view the other side as not the same as themselves. Why Pandemic Disease and War Are So Similar. Influenza: How the Great War Helped Create the Greatest Pandemic Ever Known. 620,000 Soldiers Died During the Civil War. Two Thirds Died of Disease, Not Wounds. Florence Nightingale and the Crimean War.
1.3. Returning to lag between culture/law/knowledge and current conditions (persistence in SPARTA) it appears that The Bees Are All Right. After years of uncertainty, honeybees appear poised to recover from collapse. So if the bees are all right, why don’t we think they are? Why are we constantly lamenting their demise or building large scale, nature based art in their honor? For one thing, the story of thousands of bees vanishing from the Earth was inherently more fascinating than, say, this one, which explains that reasonable and largely bureaucratic measurements helped stymie the decline. Death and Extinction of the Bee, published in 2014 republished 2016. Beetles, Butterflies and Bees, Oh My! Pollinators Face Extinction. I have criticized the emphasis on current events/situational awareness over the more complete context of deep interpretation/antecedentsin and pattern evolvement/trends. In actual fact are part of context and to have context one needs interaction of the three, otherwise one is in danger of making just one of these the context and get it wrong. One may recognize this is the context development used in stubs.
2. Major Water Main Rupture Leaves Hundreds of Thousands in Limbo. Nearly a quarter million Erie County, N.Y., residents don't know if their water is safe to drink. Though not always the case a flood does increase the risk of health risks from sewage, contaminated soil or hazmat sites, decaying bodies, mosquitos, dangerous species being forced into human areas, animals that have gone feral, molds, landslides, mudflows, weakened structures collapsing, dehydration, and of course drowning.
3. July 26, 1931 Grasshoppers Bring Ruin to Midwest. The combination of drought, locusts, economic depression resulted in a Mass Exodus from the Plains. The Dust Bowl drastically changed the demographics of the US, #Reference The Enduring Impact of the American Dust Bowl: Short and Long Run Adjustments to Environmental Catastrophe. With the drought in the west for the past few years we may see insect swarms and wind erosion again [Photo, Photo], with potential mass migration of a larger population, from a larger geographic area, heading toward latitudes that are more temperate. If the New Madrid fault slips at the same time things will get very very bad [Map]. ¶ War among humans is also arguable a biodisaster and parademic, to include displacing people, Iraq: Up to One Million People Could Be Forced to Flee Their Homes as Fighting Intensifies.
↕4. Bit premature to make this statement. The reservoir has gone dormant for the winter months in the southern hemisphere and will be back in the winter, Colombia Declares End to Zika Epidemic Inside Country. What is interesting it that this trend started about February, April Zika Declines in Some Nations, Zika Epidemic May Have Peaked but Will Threaten U.S. for Years, but has taken longer to reach the bottom of the trough before the next peak of the wave that I had anticipated. People of course look at a trough as being the end, it being difficult to comprehend cyclic disaster. Review: ‘Zika’ Tracks the Trajectory of an Epidemic [Cover], Act One of 'Zika Hits the USA' Has Begun. Zika Epidemic Declared ‘Over’ in Colombia, but Health Concerns Remain.
A. Florida Investigates Four Mysterious Zika Infections, that have raised the possibility that mosquitoes in the US have begun to carry the virus. FDATakes Steps to Protect Blood Supply in Florida amid Zika Probe, Florida has been investigating four possible cases of local transmission (The Emergence of HIV in the U.S. Blood Supply: Organizations, Obligations, and the Management of Uncertainty 1999). Two New Travel Related Cases Today both involving pregnant women How Doctors in Florida Are Protecting Pregnant Women from Zika 160724-4.1A↓. Pregnant Women Told to Delay Travel to Florida over Zika Virus Fears, this is from Public Health England not the CDC. More Bug Spray, less Dining Al Fresco Planned in Zika Zone.
B. In Florida Zika Probe, Federal Scientists Kept at Arm's Length. That is surprising to some infectious disease experts, who say a less robust response could lead to a higher number of infections. Florida Ranks 48th in Aid from Feds per Person (2011), Somehow Gov. Rick Scott Wants Federal Money for Health Care ... but Also Doesn't Want Federal Money for Health Care. FDA Temporarily Halts Blood Donation in Two Florida Counties over Zika Fears.
C. There was a similar situation in 2012 with TB Surge: CDC Asked State to Tell Public, Tuberculosis in Florida and Nowhere to Go for Treatment. Could not find data about TB in Florida from 2012 to 2016 so unknown if there was an increase in cases or not. In the overall US that was a continued trend down that started to climb again in 2014, TB Cases Increase in U.S. for First Time in 23 Years. In the short term it can be claimed that the decisions were justified, in the long term we don’t have the data yet, but we do know that health infrastructure has continued to deteriorate and there is an additional problem of TB Drug Resistance in the U.S. These are slow disasters, that have waves, go dormant and can accelerate.
D. Florida Governor Says Local Mosquitoes Have Transmitted Zika Virus, this being the same governor as for TB and Why It's So Dangerous That Florida's Governor Banned the Term 'Climate Change'; but Florida's State Employees are Preparing for Climate Change, Even as Their Governor Bans the Phrase. FEMA Won’t Give Money to States That Don’t Plan for Climate Change.
E. Locally Contracted Zika Has Been Found in Florida, Sparking Renewed Calls for Congress to Act, The Latest: Senator Seeks Reconvening of Congress Over Zika, Florida Senator Calls to Reconvene Congress to Stop Zika, Local Zika Cases in Florida Should Wake Up Congress [Cartoon]. As mentioned before in 160717-4↓, the usually safe bet to ignore health crisis because of the slowness of these events is usually safe, in this case with fear mongering from Ebola still fresh in people’s minds, and the threat being an emotional iconic one tied to other icons [Photo, Cartoon, Cartoon, Cartoon, Cartoon]. Politically, though not a major threat at this time, preemptive action would have been the better course – especially as it may become a major threat in a couple of years.
“Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows”. – Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 2, Scene 2. This apparently became the idiom, “Politics makes strange bedfellows”, originally coined by Charles Dudley Warner. ¶ This is likely an example of Zipf’s Law. In linguistics Zipf’s law is the tendency for language over time to be simpler, shorter (words and sentences), and adapted to current parlance sometimes quite removed from the original context. This is seen frequently in politics, For Presidential Hopefuls, Simpler Language Resonates, Politics and the English Language (1946). We may soon see another shortening, “Politics makes strange”.
4.1. The referenced article was posted back in 160619-4.4↓, but H5N1 has a comment that has been made by Parademic that we both have to depend on other observers and their reports. As he states his focus is on outbreaks and the politics of politics of public health, treating each as a separate posting. I am envious that H5N1 has a network of people who will provide him links and share information, a goal I hope Parademic eventually reaches. Parademic is a wider brush about human behavior and in raw form tries to connect nodes of human behavior. Though typically Parademic finds material before H5N1 I find his comments (which have become more frequent lately) worth considering, even if I don’t always agree 4.1.1↓. H5N1 posts every day to be current, while Parademic posts once a week to show patterns and give context. This is also one of the reasons for referring to the publication of stub number of related information as information that is related does not always happen on the same day, or week, or month, or year (or century). The patterns and context also becomes very time consuming for editing on top of the editing that happens all week as data is collected. If editing is done well it would add at least two more weeks before publishing, while trying to also collect for the current week (4.1.2). Sandman and Lanard on Zika Scenarios and Mental Models.
4.1.1. Earlier today Brazil Asks Whether Zika Acts Alone to Cause Birth Defects was 4.1. I was using it as a vehicle to make the point again the biodisaster is not a single cause but a combination of syndemic, other disasters, perception and parademic. In addition had noted the Sandman article about hijacked messages had been posted in an earlier weekly listicle, and included that autism may also be the result of a collection of causes.
A. Disaster is sometimes defined as a series of improbable events happening against all odds at the same time, with impossible failures, and a dash of what turns out to be a bad human decision What Are the Chances. BP Blames Rig Explosion on Series of Failures (Deepwater Horizon). Fukushima Operator 'Knew of Need to Protect Against Tsunami but Did Not Act' because the odds against were so improbable, Japan Tsunami 'Could Be 1,000 Year Event' hence events separated by time and geography can be connected. ¶ There is still a perception of risk that a biodisaster is low probability, but high damage Black Swan [Photo] risks, How Do We Perceive Risk: Paul Slovic’s Landmark Analysis, despite the fact that they frequently occur (albeit slowly, with gaps/waves, taking different forms and cyclic). One should think that biodisasters and parademics are currently happening not as a single event, but an increasingly cumulative synergy of events, with ever increasing probability and damage. 8↓.
4.1.2. CDC: Unreadably Good Advice on Zika. Not excerpting it, because the content is not the point. I'm sure it's excellent and reflects the best current evidence and thinking about Zika. It's just unreadable. This gives good advice for writing on the Internet to a lay audience from someone who is a professional writer. However for a specialized audience it is incorrect, and based on some assumptions that are not necessarily valid. For example: 1) MMRW tends to be for a health professional audience as source material for trickle down to those who have the different writing skills and styles for a wider audience but narrower focus (or at least that is how I interpret its intended audience from MMRW link; 2) The reading on screen is slower than on paper, which has no definitive evidence except a difference in age, Screen vs. Paper: What Is the Difference for Reading and Learning, The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens. The article that was the origin of the stub is Interim Guidance for Health Care Providers Caring for Pregnant Women with Possible Zika Virus Exposure — United States, July 2016. It does not appear unreadable to me, but there is the possibility that what I saw was an updated version of what H5N1 saw.
A. The cited article also touches on but misses one of the benefits of digital writing. One is not restrained by the unmalleability of hard text, but can rearrange, rephrase, change font, spacing, size, generalize or focus to help be informed, or to learn [Cartoon]. True that this allows the possibility of manipulative misrepresentation, but also the possibility of manipulating what is ineffable (The Colors of Sunset and Twilight, or “it’s reds”, or Poems About Sunset). H1N1 and Parademic both manipulate source material, provides excerpts, clearly marked curator comments and link to the source, (not always the original). In my opinion H1N1 is easier to read and more current or situational awareness, while Parademic is about context. Both are grey literature that are productions veins if one is willing to make an extra effort can compare and contrast 4.3↓. My guess is that there was similar arguements when oral literature was replaced by written, and clay tablets replaced by papyrus scrolls, Real Books Should Be Preserved like Papyrus Scrolls [Chart]. Note also the idiom carved in stone [Cartoon].
B. This difference in styles of information presentation is a behavioral dichotomy that is encountered in nearly every parademic situation. Some believing that information is too dumbed down or fiction and dismiss out of hand, while others view information as too complicated and difficult, again dismissing out of hand. A comparison would be the early technical manuals for computers (or any new field) that were unreadable to outsiders, compared to the current ones [Cover]. One can demonstrate the same with language use, form and mediums examples taken from tech support [Meme, Meme, Meme, Meme], doctors, PhDs, lawyers, gangs, teenagers. How to Explain Complex Ideas (Like Tech) to Those Who Don’t Understand. [Cartoon, Cartoon]
“If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough”. – Albert Einstein??
“Complexity isn't a vice”. – CJ, Game On, West Wing
4.2. All the Extremely Absurd Ways People Are Fighting Zika at the Rio Olympics. Donning facial masks, wearing Zika proof uniforms and freezing sperm: Does any of this stuff actually work. This is the ritual or magical response to conditions of uncertainty. These do not have to be superstition but can mimic medical practices, have the trappings of science, or adherence to official plans, doctrine and policy long after they demonstrably are not working. When this behavior occurs it can become a fixed ideation where against all evidence, and suffering of consequences, some people will still follow the ritual, procedure, schedule or habitual practice. One of the best description of this behavior is the article Baseball Magic.
4.3. Colombia Declares End to the Zika Epidemic, Have noted that in every major outbreak that it is difficult to keep track of outbreak numbers, and after about 5000 (an epidemic) numbers become meaningless. Public Zika Virus Data Can Be Volatile Zika Virus Data... So it turns out I hadn't had a stroke or started losing my mind. This really is a stark reminder that public data are volatile and can change. Sometimes that change may not be identified by the publisher - no version numbering and no note to say what changed and why. Simple stuff to add, but sometimes completely absent. We bloggers, who live in the 'grey literature' world (and rarely attract citations from the scientific literature which is unfortunate because they are original sources in natural labs), may be better at understanding the need to own our changes and mistakes. We often try to correct them in a way that is obvious to those who use or even rely on our information. This is just good practice. 4.1**↑.
A. National, and International Health Agencies are always under pressure to deflate (Level) numbers for fear of economic consequences, and to show that efforts are succeeding. Though currently in the US the pressure is to inflate (Sharpen, SLA) numbers to warn about to the biological consequences before they manifest, Colombia Says the Zika Epidemic Is over — but Birth Defects Have Yet to Peak 160214-4.2, 160710-1↓.
B. Fewer Than 100 Zika Cases Will Come From the Rio Olympics, in fact, it could be as few as six. Scientific discovery is essential to guiding public health. When it comes to Zika, to avoid public hysteria we have to continue to let new science contextualize the real versus imagined risk. Likely true, but Zika does not end with the Olympics, nor is the Olympics the reservoir. The reservoir is mobile, hard to eliminate, propagating a larger and larger area with more and more vectors, Zika Mosquito: Thrives in Hot Weather, Hard to Wipe out.
C. Ocean Cleaning Sea Bins Will Gobble up Plastic Waste to Recycle. Bins designed to suck up debris floating on the sea are in the final stages of testing, shame they won’t make it to Rio in time to clean up dirty waters at the Olympics. Wonder what the unintended consequence of this will be if it comes into use [Cartoon].
5. The July DomPrep Journal is now available. Some of the article have been noted in Parademic before but the ones of interest this month are: Public Health – Opportunities for Action, Bringing Public Health Preparedness Into the 21st Century, Threats Evolving Faster Than Preparedness, Social Impact Bonds & Sustainable Disaster Risk Reduction, Public Health: A Whole Community Approach Partner, The “Glue” for Incident Management, Recovery – Uniting Efforts in a Complex Process, Integration of Public Health Into the Whole Community.
6. Mass Incarceration is Making Infectious Diseases Worse. Depriving people of condoms and medications puts everyone at risk. There were no condoms in prison, only plastic bread bags and occasional rubber gloves. As a transgender woman locked among men in Louisiana's Orleans Parish Prison, she recalled in The Invisible Risk last year, "In order to preserve some safety and dignity, I always chose a man before one tried to impose his will on me". American Inmates Are Leaving Prison with These Incurable Diseases, Prisons Around the World Are Reservoirs of Infectious Disease. 150830-11↓. One “science fiction” scenario (that is until it happens) is that during a biodisaster there are insufficient guards to control a prison, the prisoners escape either spreading the agent, or as an additional threat against society.
7. Financial Cycles of Acquisition and 'Buybacks' Threaten Public Access to Breakthrough Drugs. An analysis of a new drug's journey to market shines a light on financial practices that see some major pharmaceutical companies relying on a cycle of acquisitions, profits from high prices, and shareholder driven maneuvers that threatens access to medicines for current and future patients. Fighting Fake Pharmaceuticals with Tiny, Edible Bar Codes.
8. This is an unusual situation of a game becoming a health hazard. Pokémon Go Players Urged Not to Venture into Fukushima Disaster Zone. Tepco requests Niantic to remove Pokémon character from nuclear plant meltdown areas and evacuation zone. BTW there is a Nuclear Type of Pokémon [Photo]. This is not the first time recreation has been in hazardous areas. Toxic Derbyshire 'Blue Lagoon' Dyed Black, Former Toxic Dump in Paintball Promoter's Sights, Testing Nebraska's Lakes for Toxic Algae Means Swim or No Swim, Scientists Trace EbolaOutbreak to a Tree Where Children Play, The Bizarre Beasts Living in Romania's Poison Cave, San Francisco's "Second Downtown" Is a Nuclear Dump, Children Find Unexploded Ordnance in Portland Park. How Can I Visit Chernobyl, and Is it Safe, Chernobyl Might Get a Second Life as a Solar Power Plant.
A. This is an artifact of words. Play, fun, recreation, beauty, natural = safe place, Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis. We see this same phenomena in risk assessment, the high probability that something will not happen means that is will not happen (4.1*↑ Black Swan). This fallacy is often times expressed in objective statistical remote terms (= correct), such as once in 10,000 years (4.1*↑ tsunami, 10,000 years being geologically a very brief time in the context of 4,543,000,000 years), or Ebola ‘Just a Flight Away’. The actual values of something will happen or will not happen is a quantum either-or. Both have a value of 1 Concepts in Probability #2: Happening vs Not Happening. What gets confused is that a listing of why something will or will not happen appears to be weighted by several reasons it may not against one decisive reason that it will.
B. We see the same thing in visual writing. Words, sentences, paragraph that are long, that change in font style, changes in color to text, quotation marks, lack of white space, unfamiliar words. All of these give an intimidating appearance of being difficult to read [Quote].
C. Though I have not quantified this most know of water cooler talk with discussions of how to get reports past the boss. Changings font size because they don’t wear their reading glasses. Lowering the grade level of the writing (simple, clear, concise). Slightly increasing line spacing and breaking up paragraphs into multiple paragraphs (about three to five lines) to increase white space. Avoiding commas and semi colons. Resubmitting what was rejected before with different margins and having it accepted. There are also the jokes about submitting something with (intentional) errors that was accepted and forwarded, and having to retrieve it without the bosses knowledge to the correct report goes forward.
D. It can also be a parademic problem with Pokemon Go a Security Risk that could potentially give access to electronic health records and medical devices. How Your Health Data Lead a Not So Secret Life Online. Insecure data makes people reluctant to be on record and can open up possibilities of manipulating data in detrimental ways.
9. Russian Authorities Evacuate Nomads after Anthrax Outbreak. 'Dangerous Infection' Russian Biological Warfare Troops Rushed to Arctic after Outbreak of Lethal Anthrax Hospitalises 40, This follows the death of 1,200 reindeer suspected of contracting the disease after a contaminated corpse – buried at least 70 years ago – thawed because of a heatwave in the Yamal peninsula in northern Siberia. This is the closest to scareline about the incident I have found. So far no reports of rumor that this is another Sverdlovsk Anthrax Leak. Russian Officials Blame Thawed Reindeer Carcass in Anthrax Outbreak. Endospores, to include anthrax, can survive (go dormant) long periods under harsh conditions, Spores Provide Dormancy at High Temperature: Bacillus Type Bacteria.
10. Mandatory vaccination is right up there with political/legal issues of gun control, abortion, immigration. The Vaccination Double Standard. Despite years of research, there’s no good way to convince anti-vaxxers of the truth. It’s time to make vaccination mandatory for all kids. Should Vaccines Be Compulsory. As long as there have been vaccinations, there has been an antivaccine movement, and as long as there has been an antivaccine movement, there have been parents who refuse to vaccinate.
11. Turns out that the TV show (160724-8, 160522-5↓) Containment: The Good, the Bad, and the Contagious had lessons learned that reflect the lessons still not learned:
- Quarantine/Isolation is vital
- PPE goes a long way – avoid those bodily fluids
- Fear and hysteria follow outbreaks like a mosquito loves BBQ’s
- Social distancing is a good practice
- Genetically engineered viruses are a concern with GoF research
- The reality that not all diseases get a miracle cure
- Tensions between Federal versus local and law enforcement versus public health 1↑
- Hospitals are woefully unprepared for emerging or unknown diseases
- Hospitals are the perfect transmission tool for diseases
- Using the same PPE over and over again
- Who has jurisdiction and what is the chain of command 1↑
- Is it possible a rogue CDC scientist to secretly get away with illegal experiments
- GoF justification due to concerns for bioweapons
- People are worried about being touched, but not about on environmental decontamination
- Science wanes as time progresses
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