ebola: risk management, decision analysis, and science

risk management - at a minimum - is a function of probability and severity of outcome.  when it comes down to the actual algorithm, we're probably looking at dozens of variables.

but let's look at probability and severity.

let's take a certain news source's "minimal risk to Americans."

a 7 gene virus with up to 90% lethality.  pretty scary, but what does the WHO know.

now let's see how another major u.s. news source refers to the disease: "one of the most deadly diseases in the world."

odd. minimal risk x one of the most deadly should generally yield a high level of caution.  throw in no vaccine and no treatment and it gets a bit hairier.

maybe juggling nukes has a minimal risk of setting one off, and i hear they're a little deadly.  don't see anyone playing with those odds.  the problem with odds as low as 0.0000001% is that when you multiply it across populations of hundreds of millions or billions, it yields actual occurrences greater than 1.  unfortunately, i don't see the odds of a muck up being that low.

the problem with short term math is that a few hundred deaths are acceptable.  several thousand too.  people die every day.  the problem is that the trade off is simply commerce.  we're just price tags.  but only until banks realize that everyone dying = massive defaults.  idiots.

if the top risk manager, virologist, statistician, and computational epidemiologist in the world can come to an agreement, i'll hear it.  because it takes a highly specialized virologist who is extremely well versed in probabilities and epidemiology to issue a qualified opinion, no more.  the rest is noise, including this.

every time a news agency issues assurances, they should pass around a gun with a single round chambered and play roulette with themselves.  save for these guys: http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-ebola-questions-20141007-story.html#page=1