Do NOT like wording in this article!

Droplets and aerosols are distinct from each other, and there really is a significant difference. Pathogens like influenza are supremely successful in spreading in part because they are truly airborne. The oft quoted line is that someone with flu sneezes in a corridor, and everyone that walks through for the next ten minutes is at risk of being infected. In humans, seasonal flu is principally respiratory - it infects, multiplies and moves on to another host using our lungs and related plumbing. In converting an airway epithelial cell into a virus factory, it ultimately kills it and causes enough irritation to initiate a sneeze, and that forceful exhalation can generate wind speeds of 100mph and push large droplets AND smaller aerosols a good way out from the victim (check out rickster58's avatar for a great example). Droplets are heavier and tend to settle on surfaces faster, while aerosols can stay suspended for much longer periods.
Ebola is not primarily respiratory - it infects endothelial cells in the linings of blood vessels and makes them "leaky", hence the whole hemorrhagic thing. If it affects blood vessels in the lungs or airway it could certainly cause bleeding there, but I'm not aware of it specifically initiating a sneeze response in a significant number of victims. All I'm hearing is that victims can cough up blood and sputum. That would be heavier droplets expelled by a 50mph cough, and they would settle pretty quickly and much closer. I know there's a certain amount of semantics involved because an inhaled droplet can still infect you, but you'd need to be standing pretty close and breathing in before gravity cleared them out of the air.
It's really not airborne - we'd have seen it spread much further and faster if it was.

Good to see he was able to walk into the hospital

Thanks JD.  I've been trying to make the droplet/aerosol  point for some time.  You put it very clearly.  Thank you.

You're welcome, Technophobe. I've been arguing the same point for days with friends who are panicking on Facebook over this. I was watching the coverage of the doctor arriving at Emory University Hospital this morning, and one of the reporters interviewed two experts and tried her hardest to get them to admit it was airborne. The exasperation in their voices as they kept saying that it wasn't made you realize they must have been asked the same question a hundred times.

Look Ebola is nothing to look away from but I am hoping our medical facilities and a more educated population not running to the bush to a healer will avoid everyone but third world countries from having this run rampant.

If you get Ebloa in Haiti or South/Central America this could get ugly.

jacksdad wrote: FluMom wrote: Look Ebola is nothing to look away from but I am hoping our medical facilities and a more educated population not running to the bush to a healer will avoid everyone but third world countries from having this run rampant. If you get Ebloa in Haiti or South/Central America this could get ugly.

This is what JD has been saying all along. Except for the Zombie Region and ugh, lettuce-for-TP Region. (Sorry Mom, that was in very poor taste!)

In fact we may end up being encroached upon but the only cases actually on our soil are carefully imported for research.

Yes it is hair splitting.  Sometimes a hair's breadth is all it takes.

Thanks carbon!  Me too!  I've asked questions on the board but they're getting ignored.  1st point is how are they so sure this is not airborne when there is evidence that at least one other ebola was airborne and how are they so sure it's not more virulent when the secondary infections are just as strong as the primary ones so it's not just dying out like usual? 

I've never seen an ebola event last this long and spread like this one.

carbon20 wrote: i've been wondering about this EBOLA  i have been watching this virus for the last 20 years, it has never moved like this, mostly it peters out very quickly ,as you can see the people are infected this one has an incubation rate of 14 days i believe, not sure if this is the differance, have to  dig a bit more.....

2 to 21 days on this one Carbon - one of the main things that ppl are saying 'doesn't sit right'... someone (Elvers?) said on another post - if it stinks it's a skunk

Technophobe wrote: Thanks JD.  I've been trying to make the droplet/aerosol  point for some time.  You put it very clearly.  Thank you.

There are a number of sides to that paricular coin, arirish. One is that Ebola deaths are more likely to be reported or detected than infections that resolve themselves and are therefore missed, which could mean the CFR is even lower. But that opens up a whole new can of worms because milder infections tend to allow wider spread, and consequently more chances for mutation

i would say there is a lot more cases that are hiding away in the bush,

That is the same question I have, and no one has mentioned what tests they are using to determine if these suspicious cases of Ebola in other countries are testing negative.  That is why this thing has gotten out of hand.  The people originally infected where testing negative and sent home.  Common sense would dictate that it is a natural event, but because of the research I have done since early April of this year I have come to the conclusion that this is a manufactured event.  I have been telling family and friends who work in health care, especially those who work in emergency rooms to please take ever precaution when seeing someone who is presenting with flu like symptoms.  Better to be safe than sorry, not one for Russian roulette.