2014-08-24 From Robert VB: The International Ebola Emergency Dear Friends, Family and Compatriots: I know it has been a while, and I hate to hit you with letter filled with grim and urgent news, but the on-going Ebola epidemic is getting so out of control, that I think that we have to focus this letter exclusively on how we might be able to help mitigate this coming catastrophe. I have started a Whitehouse petition on the topic: Please go to: http://wh.gov/lS7lN and sign. It needs a minimum of 150 signatures to go public. We need this petition to go viral. It needs 100,000 signatures to get a response from the Whitehouse. Because of Exponential Contagion, International Epidemics Require an International Response I hate to give you the sad news, but the Ebola epidemic is spreading so fast and is so out of control, that if we as American people do not urge our government to take this emergency very very very seriously right now, hundreds of thousands of people are likely to die. We really need to act to prevent this from happening. The Rwanda genocide was a shame (500,000 to 1,000,000 died) and Hurricane Katrina was a shame (1,833 deaths) largely because many or most of the deaths in these two trajedies were largely preventable with better responses from the US Government. Our government failed us in those two tragedies: We need to demand that the government not fail us and the world in responding to the Ebola epidemic. The West Africa Ebola epidemic is a tragedy similar to Katrina and Rwanda because it is creeping up on us gradually but rapidly. But it is a tragedy that is largely predictable and preventable (sort of like climate change). But we need to move quickly to do what is needed. If we don't do what is needed within the next month, the epidemic may result in hundreds of thousands of deaths. We need to create a sense of urgency right now and demand that our government will take leadership and treat this problem with the seriousness it deserves. Hundreds of Thousands of Africans Will Die If We Do Nothing I have been watching the news and the epidemic statics with growing alarm over the past several weeks. During this week both the WHO and Doctors without Borders have said that the epidemic is "out of control". See for example: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2014/08/who-ebola-out-control-20148113582852795.html This should alarm the entire world, but somehow we have become numb and it is just another sad news story. Listening to the radio this morning, I just could not believe the tone of the resports of this being just another normal news story where there is nothing that can be done. I had to check my intuition to see if this problem really was something different... So being a mathematical forecaster I had to check the numbers: how big might this problem become? I did a quick forecast of how many people might die from the epidemic in the next six months, and I was totally blown away. In the worst scenarios, more than a million people could die. In the more likely scenarios 100,000 to 200,000 people could die if we continued our response at a more casual rate. Some of the news coverage is emphasizing how Americans are not in that much danger. While this can be a concern, I do not think this should completely supplant the real issue which is that hundreds of thousands of Africans are in real danger of dying in the next six months if we do nothing. If you look deeper into the statistics you find that the key problem right now is in Liberia where cumulative cases and deaths are growing an average of 4% to 5% per day. This means that the Ebola problem doubles in size EVERY 15 DAYS. Certainly the size of the international response/support has not been doubling at this rate, and that is the crux of the problem. The problem is growing at a rate that is faster than the resources to tackle it. So of course the epidemic will continue to grow exponentially. This is simple math. If the resources for taking care of the problem grow at a rate that is slower than the need for the resources the attempts to solve the problem easily get overwhelmed. Doctors without Borders just can't grow their capabilities/capacity so that it doubles every 15 days...Liberia and Doctors without Borders need massive help. A couple of months ago, the Ebola cases were growing at a more moderate rate: about 2.3%/day or doubling about once per month. This was slow enough that in a couple of countries they have been able to start to control the growth of the epidemic, but as Ebola is controlled in some places, the growth of cases in Liberia is starting to dominate the total cases, so that the overall growth rate of the epidemic is accelerating from 2.3%/day and could accelerate to 4.5%/day if we do nothing. Having the epidemic uncontrolled in a few locations will prevent over-all control of the global epidemic. It is in the interest of everybody to help every country control the epidemic. If we let the epidemic stay out of control in Liberia for the next three months before we control it (say over a period of 4 months...), over half a million people may die: mostly in Liberia. This is NOT OK. If we let Ebola in Liberia stay out of control for two more months, nearly 200,000 people may die. If we get Ebola under control in Liberia within the next month, we may be able to keep global deaths from the Epidemic below the 100,000 level. This is still very bad, but at least not morally catastrophic as the other two scenarios. My estmate is that for every day we speed up a vigorous response to the Ebola epidemic, we will save 1,000 to 10,000 people from death by hemorrhagic fever. We have to act now...every minute counts. Quite literally, every minute we speed up the response we save a life. My Planned Next Steps: After sending this letter, I am going to write-up my projections and try to post them on a website. When I get the website done, I will send out an update so that you can access the website and have more technical information about why an urgent response is needed now that might be helpful to you in organizing for a more rapid Ebola response. I am sending out this letter before finishing the report because every minute counts on getting the signatures for the petition...and hopefully this letter is enough of a tool for doing that. (I must admit that it sort of amazes me that the CDC and WHO is having difficulty getting this out...I guess they need people like us to mobilize, or maybe they have done done the long term forecast of how many people the epidemic could kill? Or even worse...because it is mostly Africans, people don't care? I hope that last reason is not true.) I am taking tomorrow off from work. I will look at the progress of the petition signatures, and take different measures (leafletting, commenting to news articles, personally calling and emailing folks) to try to promote the petition. When it looks like the word has gotten out...I will try to get back to my regular life. White House Petition: Here is the Whitehouse Petition that you can find at: http://wh.gov/lS7lN --------------------------------------------------------------- Title: Act Immediately and Urgently to Control the International Ebola Epidemic We urge the President to declare a national and international emergency with regards to the Ebola epidemic in Africa. Ebola cases are growing exponentially, if we do not act now, hundreds of thousands of people will die over the next six months in Africa and beyond. The President should immediately: 1) Lead an effort to grow the international response to Ebola faster than the epidemic. Because in Liberia Ebola cases are doubling every 15 days, the response should grow by a factor of 10 in the next 30 days 2) Have the CDC publish a forecast of total Ebola deaths globally over the next six months and update forecasts weekly based on expected control effort impacts 3) Set a goal of minimizing total global deaths from the epidemic 4) Mobilize US military logistic resources as needed ----------------------------------------------------------------- Thank you for your support in this urgent effort to prevent unnecessary deaths in the global Ebola epidemic. In love and struggle, Robert VB