Ebola - my visual charts & projections based on WHO data

a reply to: Snarl

Yes it does.

I've updated the Ebola charts with the newest data from the World Health Organization (WHO) published October 1, 2014 which included data through September 28, 2014. I have also added the newly confirmed case of Ebola in the USA although it was not yet mentioned in the update by WHO. A man in Dallas, Texas became symptomatic on September 24th, and Ebola was confirmed on September 30, 2014, so the charts now include that case as starting on September 24, 2014.

Including the new case in Dallas, Texas, as of the end of September 28, 2014 there were:

7179 reported cases
3338 reported deaths









The same disclaimers and references apply to all of these charts:

Charts and future projections were done by me, not by WHO, except in cases where it is stated that a chart includes WHO projections. I am not an Ebola expert, epidemiologist, virologist, or MD, but I manually compiled the data used to create these graphs from news updates on the following WHO, CDC, and New England Journal of Medicine websites:

SOURCE: WHO website 1

SOURCE: WHO website 2

SOURCE: WHO website 3

SOURCE: WHO website 4

SOURCE: CDC website 1

SOURCE: The New England Journal of Medicine

In some cases, I also filled in data for dates between WHO updates using official situation reports released by the Ministries of Health of affected countries.

According to WHO,the CDC, and many charitable medical organizations such as Doctors Without Borders (MSF), it is believed that actual cases and deaths "vastly" outnumber reported figures. Most believe that there are at least 2 to 5 times as many cases and deaths. Since it is difficult to know exactly what the actual numbers are, these charts rely on the reported numbers.

Please do not do anything you might regret based on charts or projections. Hopefully efforts to contain, quarantine, treat, prevent, or cure Ebola will eventually be successful, and hopefully sooner rather than later.

The numbers do not include the Ebola outbreak in the Congo. Currently that is believed to be unrelated to this outbreak. If that situation changes or if the Congo outbreak is not contained, I may add it to these charts or create separate charts.

a reply to: ikonoklast

These last two WHO roadmap reports differ from earlier ones in that the number of confirmed cases in Liberia has dropped significantly. WHO postulates that the drop is due to the inability to ramp up the confirmation process because the stories from the field tell a completely different tale...the situation has not improved and continues to deteriorate. This brings into question the limits of the local governments to maintain the sample rate. At some point on the rising curve the fixed or deteriorating capability to accurately count will become insufficient. Using the "small net in a river" analogy, if the net fills before you can pull it, you are past the limit of your sampling capability and from that point forward your reported fish count will flatten out despite a rising fish count in the river. The WHO states they are urgently trying to address this deficiency, so let's hope they are successful otherwise these valuable charts will have reached their limits to predict where this is going and whether or not new resources are turning the tide.

a reply to: fwkitziger

Thanks! That's good information. I had noticed a slight downtrend for Liberia that seemed to defy logic since it has been totally out of control in Liberia. This explains it.

originally posted by: ikonoklast
a reply to: fwkitziger

Thanks! That's good information. I had noticed a slight downtrend for Liberia that seemed to defy logic since it has been totally out of control in Liberia. This explains it.

It is totally out of control in Liberia now. People are passing it around like the common cold.

Does your doc pass you, with a common cold, forward as a statistic? Or, do you get a cold pack for treatment as he moves along to his next patient? After a thousand cases, why does a doc have to Prove you're an Ebola victim with a specific test that takes three or four days. You'd think they know what they're seeing, but ... there's no statistic recorded, without the test.

The WHO and the CDC 'play along' because the lack of accurate reporting supports their "See? Don't panic." narrative. This is the way Medical Intelligence works.

These comments don't seem to fit in your thread. I'll edit them away if the clock doesn't stop, or we can ask a mod for a 'thread drift' pull. Your call.

originally posted by: ikonoklast
a reply to: fwkitziger

Thanks! That's good information. I had noticed a slight downtrend for Liberia that seemed to defy logic since it has been totally out of control in Liberia. This explains it.

The WHO Roadmap Situation Report (which is the primary source of the plot data for those new to the thread) does include three categories of cases: Confirmed, Probable and Suspected. For the Confirmed cases count, WHO require positive lab test, which seems to be the first sample net breaking down. Definitions for Suspected and Probable statistics are in the Situation Report also.

a reply to: Snarl

I don't have a problem with your comments.

In the charts I have to stick to the reported numbers because they are the most official and it's hard for deniers to argue with the people most consider the experts. And I've been trying to stay optimistic and objective even as I chart deadly exponential growth that is for the most part not slowing down at all.

But like many here, I've been watching the debacle in Texas this week with growing horror. Each new revelation of how the Ebola case in Dallas has been and is being handled exposes still greater levels of what appears to be gross negligence and incompetence. And that's with just a single case to try to contain in the USA. So far.

a reply to: fwkitziger

Yes, you are right. For the most part, the charts I've been producing use the totals of confirmed, probable, and suspected cases and/or deaths, which are the numbers most commonly reported in the news and used for projections.

I thought about trying to use only confirmed cases, but the quality of classifying cases like this varies too widely. In Guinea and Liberia, the vast majority of all reported cases are currently confirmed cases. But in Liberia, only about 1 out of 4 reported cases are confirmed cases.

That appears to be for the reason you describe - Liberia is completely overwhelmed and cannot confirm cases fast enough. They reportedly don't have hospital beds for at least half of the people that are brought in for diagnosis and treatment. People are literally dying in the streets and are often left there for days because they cannot even dispose of contagious bodies fast enough. It's hard to imagine how bad it must be there.

Most experts, including WHO and the CDC, believe that the actual numbers are likely 2-5 times higher than the totals of confirmed, probable, and suspected cases and deaths.

WHO has released a new Ebola Response Roadmap Update today. They have added entries to their tables for cases in the USA. They show 1 confirmed case, 0 confirmed deaths, and they have put "No data" in the table cells for probable cases, suspected cases, probably deaths, and suspected deaths.

I've been wondering whether to include only cases in the USA like the case in Dallas or to also include cases that were medically evacuated to the USA from west Africa in the charts. Since WHO is not currently including the medical evacuations, I guess I will follow that standard to try to maintain consistency between WHO numbers and my charts. I would think that will probably need to change, though, if any of the medical evacuation cases spread it to others in the USA (e.g., medical personnel treating the evacuated patients).

ETA: I will be updating the charts with this new data today or tomorrow, as soon as I get a chance.

I've updated the Ebola charts with the newest data from the World Health Organization (WHO) published October 3, 2014. According to WHO, through October 1, 2014 for most affected countries (but only through September 30, 2014 for Liberia), there were:

7492 reported cases
3439 reported deaths

Since Liberia has by far the largest number of cases and deaths, plotting points for October 1st without including data from Liberia would show an incorrect picture. Therefore the charts are updated through September 30, 2014.









The same disclaimers and references apply to all of these charts:

Charts and future projections were done by me, not by WHO, except in cases where it is stated that a chart includes WHO projections. I am not an Ebola expert, epidemiologist, virologist, or MD, but I manually compiled the data used to create these graphs from news updates on the following WHO, CDC, and New England Journal of Medicine websites:

SOURCE: WHO website 1

SOURCE: WHO website 2

SOURCE: WHO website 3

SOURCE: WHO website 4

SOURCE: CDC website 1

SOURCE: The New England Journal of Medicine

In some cases, I also filled in data for dates between WHO updates using official situation reports released by the Ministries of Health of affected countries.

According to WHO,the CDC, and many charitable medical organizations such as Doctors Without Borders (MSF), it is believed that actual cases and deaths "vastly" outnumber reported figures. Most believe that there are at least 2 to 5 times as many cases and deaths. Since it is difficult to know exactly what the actual numbers are, these charts rely on the reported numbers.

Please do not do anything you might regret based on charts or projections. Hopefully efforts to contain, quarantine, treat, prevent, or cure Ebola will eventually be successful, and hopefully sooner rather than later.

The numbers do not include the Ebola outbreak in the Congo. Currently that is believed to be unrelated to this outbreak. If that situation changes or if the Congo outbreak is not contained, I may add it to these charts or create separate charts.

a reply to: fwkitziger

Liberia must have excess resources somewhere since they have decided to unleash them on journalists instead of Ebola. They must be taking their que from Dallas authorities on what not to do or how to really mess up infectious disease response.

Liberia places restrictions on Ebola coverage

Liberia's government has said that journalists will now need official permission to cover the Ebola outbreak under new rules aimed at protecting patient privacy.

The move was announced on Thursday, the same day an American cameraman working for NBC News in Liberia became the first foreign journalist to test positive for Ebola. There was no indication that the new rules were related to that case.

Growing international media interest in the outbreak, which has killed nearly 2,000 people and infected 3,696 in Liberia, has highlighted the challenges to the West African country's health-care system.

Journalists could be arrested and prosecuted if they fail to get written permission from the health ministry before contacting Ebola patients, conducting interviews or filming or photographing health-care facilities, officials said.

Source

I guess they figured out the quickest way to get their reported Ebola case numbers to decrease. That'll help...not.

a reply to: DancedWithWolves

Isn't this akin to when Tepco only counted radiation exposure of the workers while they were on the clock?

If we don't report it, it's not happening...

a reply to: DancedWithWolves

Based on reported numbers up until now, Liberia has been the hardest hit country. And doing my projections, it is clear to me that Liberia is likely to be the main deciding factor in the overall size and speed of the spread. If news gets cut off from Liberia and there is a deliberate coverup of the numbers, it will have a major impact on the ability to estimate how bad things really are getting.

Deadliest day on record for Sierra Leone

Source

FREETOWN (Reuters) - Sierra Leone recorded 121 deaths from Ebola and scores of new infections in one of the single deadliest days since the disease appeared in the West African country more than four months ago, government health statistics showed on Sunday.

The figures, which covered the period through Saturday, put the total number of deaths at 678, up from 557 the day before. The daily statistics compiled by Sierra Leone's Emergency Operations Centre also showed 81 new cases of the hemorrhagic fever.

In Liberia, it is becoming impossible for crews picking up the dead who have been hidden in homes to keep up with the number of bodies.

Deaths hidden as fear grips Liberia

Liberia's few ebola treatment centres are overwhelmed with the sick and dying - with patients sharing beds and the dead laying near the desperately ill.

The country has accounted for more than half of the world's deaths from the latest ebola outbreak in West Africa and despite assurances from the President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf that it is under control, evidence on the ground seen by Sky News appears to suggest otherwise.

Whole communities are gripped with fear about the virus - and terrified citizens prefer to die alone, unaided because of the stigma attached to admitting to the disease.

Dozens of ebola victims are dying in their homes in Monrovia, increasing the chances of the virus spreading.

And official numbers of victims are almost certainly unrepresentative of the real death count because of the lack of coordination and nationwide spread of the disease.

Small teams of about half a dozen workers set out daily to retrieve the ebola dead - most of whom have died after suffering in secret.

Their relatives are reluctant to admit ebola has caused the death, as this invariably invites ostracisation from their communities and targets them as potential virus carriers.

The body recovery squads - still called "burial teams" despite government orders that all ebola victims be cremated - are doing one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.

They take extreme precautions, wearing multiple protective clothing layers along with goggles, boots, gloves and head coverings to try to stay safe.

Head of Team Three, Mark Vayowan, told Sky: "There's no day comes that people don't die in their house. Every day, every blessing day."

There's simply too much work for the recovery teams to do, not enough hours in the day for them to track down the dead.

Even as they were picking up the latest corpses from the Elwa Treatment Centre, a young man was sobbing outside.

He cried: "Oh my god, I was just bringing a phone for my sister. Now they say she's died. What am I going to do? She has children ..."

George Nyumah, like so many of Liberia's citizens, is frantically worried about catching the virus.

So the five children his sister cares for are left alone to fend for themselves in their one-room, corrugated iron shack home.

The eldest is 16, the youngest just two and they are all sleep on the dirty mattress which their sick mother lay on in the days before she was taken into the ebola centre.

Their chances of catching or carrying the virus must be very high.

For that reason, their uncle George - and the rest of the extended family - will keep well away for 21 days, just to see if they develop signs of the killer disease.

Source

Add to that...Liberia is threatening to arrest journalists who report on Ebola without government permission.

a reply to: DancedWithWolves

A desparate act by a collapsing government. Obviously GoL didn't like the story being told that conflicted with the reported falling numbers of confirmed cases in Monrovia. So it may be that the capacity to count is fine, it is the will to count that's lacking. Either way, government interference with reporting in Liberia is like turning out the lights, it's over....you can't fix what you can't see.

originally posted by: DancedWithWolves
Deadliest day on record for Sierra Leone

Source

FREETOWN (Reuters) - Sierra Leone recorded 121 deaths from Ebola and scores of new infections in one of the single deadliest days since the disease appeared in the West African country more than four months ago, government health statistics showed on Sunday.

The figures, which covered the period through Saturday, put the total number of deaths at 678, up from 557 the day before. The daily statistics compiled by Sierra Leone's Emergency Operations Centre also showed 81 new cases of the hemorrhagic fever.

Yes, not much good news from Africa, except for Nigeria and Senegal which have passed the 21-day mark with no new reported cases or deaths.

The numbers from Reuters from Sierra Leone are apparently just the laboratory-confirmed death numbers (though they are a bit off on their number for Friday). If you look at the jump in confirmed, probably, and suspected from Friday to Saturday it's even worse:

Cumulative Deaths from Ebola through Friday, Oct 3, 2014 from Sierra Leone government situation report 129:

Suspected: 11
Probable: 37
Confirmed: 538
Total: 586

Cumulative Deaths from Ebola through Saturday, Oct 4, 2014 from Sierra Leone government situation report 130:

Suspected: 30
Probable: 123
Confirmed: 678
Total: 831

WHO has actually been reporting higher number for deaths in Sierra Leone. As of Oct 1, 2014, WHO reported 623 deaths, but the Sierra Leone Ministry of Health & Sanitation only reported 580 deaths.

Looks like I will be adding another country into the charts.

Reuters: Spanish nurse infected with Ebola in Madrid, ministry confirms

Spanish health officials on Monday said that a Spanish nurse who treated a priest repatriated to Madrid with Ebola last month, and who died of the disease, had also been infected.

...in the first case of Ebola being contracted outside of West Africa.

...The nurse began to feel sick on Sept. 30...

a reply to: ikonoklast

Do you know how to carve stone (it survives for a long time if done right)?

Might be time to learn. I recommend you keep it cryptic and scatter clues ... to give the discoverers something to debate thousands of years from now.

a reply to: Snarl

Tried it once, but I apparently wasn't cryptic enough and someone didn't realize I was joking with one of the lines, "Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature." Next thing I knew there was this Ebola thing going on.

I was thinking next time maybe I'd try a smooth black rectangular stone with no carving. Maybe bury it on the moon or put it in orbit around Jupiter or something.

a reply to: ikonoklast

LOL If you opt in for the latter, I have a friend who recently retired from a PM's position at NASA. If asked right, he might be swayed into calling in a marker over a fine bottle of single malt.

Kidding aside, I think I speak for everyone when I say, "I appreciate what you're doing for this community. Your diligence in maintaining this thread sets a standard we should all strive for."

-Cheers