Here's What Successful People Eat For Breakfast | ||
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How the rich and famous start their day. Produced by Sam Rega. Follow BI Video: On Facebook NOW WATCH: BI Original Video The Truth About 'The Most Interesting Man In The World' Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Ebola And Big Data: A Call For Help | ||
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With at least 4,500 people dead, public-health authorities in west Africa and worldwide are struggling to contain Ebola. Borders have been closed, air passengers screened, schools suspended. But a promising tool for epidemiologists lies unused: mobile-phone data. When people make mobile-phone calls, the network generates a call data record (CDR) containing such information as the phone numbers of the caller and receiver, the time of the call and the tower that handled it--which gives a rough indication of the device's location. This information provides researchers with an insight into mobility patterns. Indeed phone companies use these data to decide where to build base stations and thus improve their networks, and city planners use them to identify places to extend public transport. But perhaps the most exciting use of CDRs is in the field of epidemiology. Until recently the standard way to model the spread of a disease relied on extrapolating trends from census data and surveys. CDRs, by contrast, are empirical, immediate and updated in real time. You do not have to guess where people will flee to or move. Researchers have used them to map malaria outbreaks in Kenya and Namibia and to monitor the public response to government health warnings during Mexico's swine-flu epidemic in 2009. Models of population movements during a cholera outbreak in Haiti following the earthquake in 2010 used CDRs and provided the best estimates of where aid was most needed.
Doing the same with Ebola would be hard: in west Africa most people do not own a phone. But CDRs are nevertheless better than simulations based on stale, unreliable statistics. If researchers could track population flows from an area where an outbreak had occurred, they could see where it would be likeliest to break out next--and therefore where they should deploy their limited resources. Yet despite months of talks, and the efforts of the mobile-phone operators' trade association and several smaller UN agencies, telecom operators have not let researchers use the data (see "Ebola and big data: Waiting on hold"). One excuse is privacy, which is certainly a legitimate worry, particularly in countries fresh from civil war, or where tribal tensions exist. But the phone data can be anonymised and aggregated in a way that alleviates these concerns. A bigger problem is institutional inertia. Big data is a new field. The people who grasp the benefits of examining mobile-phone usage tend to be young, and lack the clout to free them for research use. It's an old problemThis needs to change. Governments should require mobile operators to give approved researchers access to their CDRs. The data will obviously not by themselves prevent this outbreak from turning into a disaster. That will take an extraordinary combination of new drugs, careful prevention and patient care, among other things. But the health workers dealing with Ebola on the ground need all the help they can get. Click here to subscribe to The Economist. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Mobile-phone records are an invaluable tool to combat Ebola. They should be made available to researchers.
Here's What Successful People Eat For Breakfast | ||
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How the rich and famous start their day. Produced by Sam Rega. Follow BI Video: On Facebook NOW WATCH: BI Original Video The Truth About 'The Most Interesting Man In The World' Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Woman Quarantined In New Jersey Tests Negative For Ebola | ||
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A woman who was quarantined at a New Jersey airport on Friday has tested negative in a preliminary test for Ebola, state officials said Saturday morning. The woman, a healthcare worker who had treated patients with Ebola in affected countries in Africa, was quarantined at Newark Liberty International Airport after arriving in the US on Friday. She showed no symptoms upon arrival, but later developed a slight fever. "A healthcare worker with a recent history of treating Ebola patients in West Africa who was quarantined from Newark Liberty International Airport yesterday has tested negative in a preliminary test for Ebola," the New Jersey Department of Health said in a statement. "The patient continues to be quarantined and remains in isolation and under observation at University Hospital in Newark." The department added that physicians at the hospital would continue to monitor the patient and keep in close contact with officials at both the New Jersey Department of Health and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The woman was the first traveler to be quarantined under new protocols announced Friday by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The governors said there will now be a mandatory 21-day quarantine for health workers and any other passengers who had contact with Ebola-stricken people. "I think the action you see us taking today is based upon experience that we’ve had on the ground both in New York and in New Jersey. And that’s our responsibility," Christie said. "Our responsibility is to make sure we protect the public health of the people of our state." Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Mali seeks to contain Ebola fears after girl dies | ||
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Bamako (AFP) - Mali authorities on Saturday scrambled to calm fears over Ebola after the disease claimed its first victim in the African country, a contagious toddler who took a 1,000-kilometre journey on public buses before seeking treatment. The World Health Organization warned the situation in Mali was an "emergency," and said in its latest Ebola situation report that the biggest outbreak on record has now killed 4,922 people, the vast majority of them in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, with 10,141 cases reported. The US states of New York and New Jersey ordered mandatory quarantine for medics who had treated victims of the disease in west Africa, after a doctor who had returned from the region became the first Ebola case in New York City. President Barack Obama sought to calm a jittery public by hugging one of the two nurses who became the first to contract Ebola on American soil after treating a patient, but has now been declared free of the disease. Mali President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita aimed to ease fears after the death of a two-year-old girl, the first Ebola case in the landlocked country, who travelled from neighbouring Guinea. "We are doing everything to prevent panic and psychosis," he said in an interview with French radio. "Since the start of this epidemic, we in Mali took all measures to be safe, but we never hermetically sealed ourselves from this," he said. "Guinea is a neighbouring country, we have a common border that we have not closed and that we will not close."
- Mali 'emergency' -
But WHO said it was treating the situation in Mali as an "emergency" because the toddler had travelled for hundreds of kilometres on public transport with her grandmother while showing symptoms of the disease -- meaning that she was contagious. She was said to be secreting bodily fluids -- contact with which is how the virus is passed on. "The child's symptomatic state during the bus journey is especially concerning, as it presented multiple opportunities for exposures -– including high-risk exposures -- involving many people," the UN agency said. The girl and her grandmother travelled by public transport from Keweni in Guinea through the towns of Kankan, Sigouri and Kouremale to the Malian capital, Bamako. "The two stayed in Bamako for two hours before travelling on to Kayes," in Mali's southwest, where treatment was sought for the child, the WHO said. The route made for a journey of around 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) that would likely take the better part of 24 hours. "Bleeding from the nose began while both were still in Guinea, meaning that the child was symptomatic during their travels through Mali... multiple opportunities for exposure occurred when the child was visibly symptomatic." An Ebola victim is contagious when showing symptoms of the virus, such as a high fever. The Malian authorities were tracing everyone who had contact with the girl and her grandmother and 43 people had been placed under observation, the WHO said.
- Mandatory US quarantines -
New York City's first Ebola case, 33-year-old doctor Craig Spencer who fell ill one week after returning from treating patients in Guinea, was said to be in a stable condition in isolation at the city's Bellevue Hospital Center. His fiancee and two of his friends are in quarantine but appear healthy, officials said. In the wake of his diagnosis in the country's largest city, the US states of New York and New Jersey ordered mandatory quarantines of 21 days -- the maximum gestation period for Ebola -- for any individuals who have had direct contact with an Ebola patient while in the worst affected countries. Dallas-based nurse Nina Pham, who became the first person to contract Ebola in the US after treating an Ebola patient who eventually died at a Dallas hospital, was declared free of the disease. "I am on my way back to recovery even as I reflect on how many others have not been so fortunate," Pham said before meeting Obama, who gave her a bear hug in an effort to reassure a public nervous over the virus. Her nursing colleague Amber Vinson, who had also caught the disease, has also been given the all-clear.
- Vaccine doses by 2015 -
The search for an effective vaccine to fight the disease for which there is currently no licensed cure took on fresh urgency as the WHO said several hundred thousand doses could be available in the "first half" of 2015. Experts are pinning their hopes on the experimental vaccine rVSV, with doses arriving in Geneva for a new round of trials, and ChAd3, made by Britain's GlaxoSmithKline. Five other potential vaccines are in the pipeline. Whichever proves effective in trials, WHO hopes to send huge numbers of doses to Africa for "real-world" tests. "The pharmaceutical companies developing all these vaccines are committing to ramping up the production capacity to millions of doses to be available in 2015," said WHO assistant director general Marie-Paule Kieny. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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WEEKEND READS: Catch Up On The Best Economics And Finance Links Of The Week (DIA, SPY, SPX, QQQ) | ||
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Should Janet Yellen talk about inequality? Cardiff Garcia has a thoughtful look into the gray area between fiscal and monetary policies. “We believe the AQR/stress test will be a cathartic experience for European banks and a positive milestone in their recovery story,” says Philippe Bodereau at PIMCO, apparently taking the overly dramatic statements reins from Bill Gross. Kevin Roose went long in an interview with Marc Andreessen. Agree with him or not, he gives some interesting answers. Foreclosure auctions of occupied homes in Detroit could put out 150,000 people. Worse — many residents might actually be able to afford to buy back their homes at auction, but don’t know they can. Rose Hackman talks to those whose livelihoods are on the chopping block. It was pet week at Fast Company, which gave rise to this wonder of a statement: “...in other words, they were just the right kinds of cats to visually represent the rise of the luxury economy glamorized in movies and TV.” The Storyline, the newest project out of the Washington Post, continues to have the most consistently excellent reporting on the economy anywhere. See them on inefficient power plants, student debt, and FedEx trying to save its business model. Does someone in New York State owe you money? Check here. Dan Davies on European bonus caps: “As substantive regulatory policy, it’s a terrible idea.” Would helicopter money be an effective stimulus plan? Here’s Simon Wren-Lewis saying yes. Here’s Tony Yates saying no. Bonus! A poem: Growing a Bear by Hannah Gamble Self promotion: Bill Ackman's big pharma trade is making Wall Street a very awkward place - Linette Lopez Everything about the way we teach math is wrong - Andy Kiersz The Quaint Economy: How a good story makes a successful product - Me T. Boone Pickens: Here's why I've never had coffee - Julia La Roche I don’t know what Caterpillar said in its earnings video because of all the awesome clips of tractors doing stuff - Sam Ro SEE ALSO: Central Bankers Have Gone 'Mean Girls' On Each Other — Here's What They're Probably Saying Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Did you miss something on the internet this week? No matter who you are, the answer is probably yes. We’re here to help you catch up. Here’s a smattering of excellent posts from the last few days: