October 14, 2020
Crisis in the Red Zone:
The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak,
and the Outbreaks to Come
Richard Preston
Author
Lanny Jones, Introducer, and Richard Preston
Minutes of the Sixth Meeting of the 79th Year
President Stephen Schreiber opened the Old Guard Zoom Room for 148 computer links at 10:17 AM. The meeting was a trial run of closed captioning of the proceedings available in real time. Stephen Schreiber welcomed Richard Trenner and Sarah Jones, guests of Kathryn Trenner and Lanny Jones, respectively. Bernie Miller read the minutes of the October 7th meeting.
Lanny Jones introduced Richard Preston, the author of the 1994 best seller, The Hot Zone. His new book, Crisis in the Red Zone, was the topic of his presentation. After graduating from Pomona College, he earned a Ph.D. from Princeton University writing about 19th century American narrative nonfiction. He began his career in journalism as an explorer of science. Preston lives on a farm outside of Hopewell N.J., though spoke to us from his farmhouse in Maine.
Preston reported that the Ebola epidemic of 2014-15 started in a village of the Kissi ethnic group in West Africa when a child became sick after playing with a bat his friends had roasted and eaten. The child died, his sister died, their mother died, their grandmother died and the disease soon spread to medical workers in the local hospital. A super-spreader event occurred when a revered faith healer died and many at her funeral hugged and kissed her body.
Soon the epidemic was rampant in the Kissi areas of West Africa, a territory that includes Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. Doctors Without Borders tried to suppress the outbreak and their treatment centers became completely overwhelmed. Preston compared the local reaction to these workers from the outside who looked different, spoke a different language, and took in patients who were never seen again, to how suburban America would react if it happened here. Medics were threatened with bodily harm as they tried to bury dead victims to keep the virus from spreading.
Ebola is a virus – not strictly alive, but certainly not dead. It is a small particle, typically a little protein shell. The particles are long and skinny, resembling strands of spaghetti. The description of the virus seems counterintuitive. The virus as a parasite can only make copies of itself inside the cells of a living creature. In that sense, the virus is not itself alive. It is a life form, but not an organism.
Biologists think of viruses as being an entirely separate form in the world of biology – a biosphere and virosphere which interpenetrate each other like milk and tea or mist and air. Viruses are the most numerous life form in the world’s oceans and they may be the most numerous life form in the world's forests and land-based ecosystems.
Scientific studies have shown that when a person dies from Ebola virus, the particles come out of the sweat glands all over the body, and the body itself is covered with a kind of paint of Ebola particles.
Research shows that as few as a single infected Ebola particle can cause an explosive infection in a human leading to death. This virus is exquisitely infectious in direct contact, and when it moves through a population, it's about as contagious as seasonal flu.
Eventually the virus came to the United States, where it resulted in 11 cases of Ebola.
Preston pointed out that in the Kissi areas where the virus had first arisen, the virus suddenly died out, and Kissi people were the first to recognize that it was simply an infectious disease.
They reverted to the ancient African practice of reverse quarantine, where a village is closed off to outsiders in a time of plague.
All across West Africa, people engaged in harsh social distancing, and the virus came to an end.
Preston then moved to the topic of the coronavirus.
The coronavirus is a life form that is exceedingly small. Eight hundred of the particles, lined up side by side, are the thickness of a human hair.
The human species is vulnerable for at least three reasons.
First is what our speaker called the packing factor. All around the world we see the growth of super cities with a high population density.
The second factor for the rapid explosion of new viruses is air travel. In 2019, before the coronavirus hit, there were 4.5 billion passenger trips on airplanes.
The third factor is the fragmentation of ecosystems. This burgeoning human population is coming into contact with damaged and changing ecosystems and we are into frequent contact with animals and life forms to which we were previously not exposed.
Preston asked: When will it end?
He answered that it will only end when we decide it's going to end and when we all start wearing masks and taking appropriate precautions.
He thinks the pandemic has revealed that public health is now a matter of national security.
He urged that we devote the same kinds of resources that we do with any major national security threat.
Second, we need to have platforms in place for the rapid development of vaccines and drugs.
Third, we can and should harden the medical system against pandemics.
We are in the process of doing that and we are learning by trial and error, but the medical system could be a lot better in dealing with infectious agents. The U.S. kept Ebola down to 11 cases because hospitals were alert and we had the medical technology to prevent the spread.
A question and answer session followed the speaker’s remarks.
How does it end? Aren't the virus particles still out there?
The bad news is that it never ends. COVID has most likely established itself as a permanent disease of the human species, and it happened from one human infection from a bat. The good news is that as time goes by, Preston believes that COVID is going to become another one of the diseases that we all get vaccinated for.
If you were in charge, what measures would you put into effect now?
First, I would give a lot of control to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, one of the best-run agencies in the United States. The present White House has stripped that premier agency of authority and credibility.
Secondly, I would be very inclined to mandate the wearing of masks. Masks have every sign of being even more effective than a vaccine.
Does herd immunity work?
It does work and it works currently for measles virus. It’s much more feasible to achieve immunity with a vaccine than it is by just allowing the virus to sweep through the population and kill one million or two million people. That's a bad way to get herd immunity.
Although bio-weapons are a threat, climate change is a much more profound threat to the human species.
Bats should not be eliminated. They play an important role in the ecosystem.
Less deadly viruses such as coronaviruses are harder to eradicate than the Ebola virus. Ebola kills its hosts very rapidly and the symptoms are quite obvious; once a person gets sick with a bloody nose and eyes the color of rubies, people are going to stay away from infected individuals. The “genius” of the coronavirus is that it infects many people without giving them overt symptoms.
Richard Preston left us with the final thought that we as a culture need to recognize the validity of science and we have to have a sense of curiosity, a sense of open mindedness and an ability to adjust our behavior in thinking based on what science tells us.
Respectfully submitted,
Jock McFarlane
Lanny Jones introduced Richard Preston, the author of the 1994 best seller, The Hot Zone. His new book, Crisis in the Red Zone, was the topic of his presentation. After graduating from Pomona College, he earned a Ph.D. from Princeton University writing about 19th century American narrative nonfiction. He began his career in journalism as an explorer of science. Preston lives on a farm outside of Hopewell N.J., though spoke to us from his farmhouse in Maine.
Preston reported that the Ebola epidemic of 2014-15 started in a village of the Kissi ethnic group in West Africa when a child became sick after playing with a bat his friends had roasted and eaten. The child died, his sister died, their mother died, their grandmother died and the disease soon spread to medical workers in the local hospital. A super-spreader event occurred when a revered faith healer died and many at her funeral hugged and kissed her body.
Soon the epidemic was rampant in the Kissi areas of West Africa, a territory that includes Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. Doctors Without Borders tried to suppress the outbreak and their treatment centers became completely overwhelmed. Preston compared the local reaction to these workers from the outside who looked different, spoke a different language, and took in patients who were never seen again, to how suburban America would react if it happened here. Medics were threatened with bodily harm as they tried to bury dead victims to keep the virus from spreading.
Ebola is a virus – not strictly alive, but certainly not dead. It is a small particle, typically a little protein shell. The particles are long and skinny, resembling strands of spaghetti. The description of the virus seems counterintuitive. The virus as a parasite can only make copies of itself inside the cells of a living creature. In that sense, the virus is not itself alive. It is a life form, but not an organism.
Biologists think of viruses as being an entirely separate form in the world of biology – a biosphere and virosphere which interpenetrate each other like milk and tea or mist and air. Viruses are the most numerous life form in the world’s oceans and they may be the most numerous life form in the world's forests and land-based ecosystems.
Scientific studies have shown that when a person dies from Ebola virus, the particles come out of the sweat glands all over the body, and the body itself is covered with a kind of paint of Ebola particles.
Research shows that as few as a single infected Ebola particle can cause an explosive infection in a human leading to death. This virus is exquisitely infectious in direct contact, and when it moves through a population, it's about as contagious as seasonal flu.
Eventually the virus came to the United States, where it resulted in 11 cases of Ebola.
Preston pointed out that in the Kissi areas where the virus had first arisen, the virus suddenly died out, and Kissi people were the first to recognize that it was simply an infectious disease.
They reverted to the ancient African practice of reverse quarantine, where a village is closed off to outsiders in a time of plague.
All across West Africa, people engaged in harsh social distancing, and the virus came to an end.
Preston then moved to the topic of the coronavirus.
The coronavirus is a life form that is exceedingly small. Eight hundred of the particles, lined up side by side, are the thickness of a human hair.
The human species is vulnerable for at least three reasons.
First is what our speaker called the packing factor. All around the world we see the growth of super cities with a high population density.
The second factor for the rapid explosion of new viruses is air travel. In 2019, before the coronavirus hit, there were 4.5 billion passenger trips on airplanes.
The third factor is the fragmentation of ecosystems. This burgeoning human population is coming into contact with damaged and changing ecosystems and we are into frequent contact with animals and life forms to which we were previously not exposed.
Preston asked: When will it end?
He answered that it will only end when we decide it's going to end and when we all start wearing masks and taking appropriate precautions.
He thinks the pandemic has revealed that public health is now a matter of national security.
He urged that we devote the same kinds of resources that we do with any major national security threat.
Second, we need to have platforms in place for the rapid development of vaccines and drugs.
Third, we can and should harden the medical system against pandemics.
We are in the process of doing that and we are learning by trial and error, but the medical system could be a lot better in dealing with infectious agents. The U.S. kept Ebola down to 11 cases because hospitals were alert and we had the medical technology to prevent the spread.
A question and answer session followed the speaker’s remarks.
How does it end? Aren't the virus particles still out there?
The bad news is that it never ends. COVID has most likely established itself as a permanent disease of the human species, and it happened from one human infection from a bat. The good news is that as time goes by, Preston believes that COVID is going to become another one of the diseases that we all get vaccinated for.
If you were in charge, what measures would you put into effect now?
First, I would give a lot of control to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, one of the best-run agencies in the United States. The present White House has stripped that premier agency of authority and credibility.
Secondly, I would be very inclined to mandate the wearing of masks. Masks have every sign of being even more effective than a vaccine.
Does herd immunity work?
It does work and it works currently for measles virus. It’s much more feasible to achieve immunity with a vaccine than it is by just allowing the virus to sweep through the population and kill one million or two million people. That's a bad way to get herd immunity.
Although bio-weapons are a threat, climate change is a much more profound threat to the human species.
Bats should not be eliminated. They play an important role in the ecosystem.
Less deadly viruses such as coronaviruses are harder to eradicate than the Ebola virus. Ebola kills its hosts very rapidly and the symptoms are quite obvious; once a person gets sick with a bloody nose and eyes the color of rubies, people are going to stay away from infected individuals. The “genius” of the coronavirus is that it infects many people without giving them overt symptoms.
Richard Preston left us with the final thought that we as a culture need to recognize the validity of science and we have to have a sense of curiosity, a sense of open mindedness and an ability to adjust our behavior in thinking based on what science tells us.
Respectfully submitted,
Jock McFarlane