Talk:Ebola in the United Kingdom/Archive 1

Tidied up this article
I've generally tidied up this article, including moving some valid but off-topic material to its own article. I've also deleted some material which I felt was mere WP:SYN with a peculiar anti-woman agenda. and some material that was pure reported speculation. -- The Anome (talk) 17:56, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Two more people being tested
According to this from Channel 4 News, two more people are currently being tested for possible Ebola infection: one in Aberdeen and the other in Truro, Cornwall. However, both are viewed as being at low risk of actually having being infected, and at the moment the expectation is that both will be cleared. Neither is worth including in the article at this point. -- The Anome (talk) 18:59, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I added a sentence on this & them being cleared. It may not be overly necessary but it received quite a bit of coverage along with the other current news stories. Sam Walton (talk) 15:01, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Extraneous prediction removed
I've removed the following:


 * In October 2014, the United Kingdom was rated as the 6th most likely country to have an imported Ebola case.

While this might have been relevant in October, it's no longer relevant today. The actual case of an imported infection constitutes facts on the ground, and makes such speculation completely irrelevant: the post facto probability turned out to be 1, and any considerations of "forward looking" probability are only worth considering from a philosophical basis, if at all. As the guidelines say, Wikipedia is not a crystal ball, and it's certainly not a retroactive crystal ball. -- Impsswoon (talk) 19:38, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
 * This makes sense. On the same note I don't think extra details about the number of people in the UK belong in the article either (though I did remove those). Sam Walton (talk) 19:45, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
 * "It is appropriate to report discussion and arguments about the prospects for success of future proposals and projects or whether some development will occur, if discussion is properly referenced." WP:CRYSTAL. Siuenti (talk) 19:46, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think this is the kind of topic where an old prediction is still relevant. Does the reader learn anything from the above sentence? Sam Walton (talk) 19:53, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Also: the sentence removed cited Business Insider, not the academic source, and the academic source itself was only a single study based on a single model. While this paper was good work, this sort of modelling can only be based on the very partial information we had at the time, for what is an unprecedented event. As a result, I think we can say that this type of work is a lot better than drawing a number out of a hat, but it's basically still a form of high-class speculation. But in any case, this figure is entirely irrelevant now.


 * Homework for extra credit: apply Bayes' Theorem to the modelled probabilities, given the ex-post-facto results, to give... er... some sort of number. Discuss, with special consideration of frequentism vs. belief models of probability, and the epistemological status of reality. (Actually, please don't!) -- Impsswoon (talk) 19:58, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Suspected Bristol case
The possible Bristol case has now tested negative, so I've removed it from the article: see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/ebola/11323991/Ebola-in-Britain-Gloucestershire-case-tests-negative.html -- Impsswoon (talk) 13:47, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Image of Royal Free
I put back the image of the Royal Free after it was removed, I think it would be a useful illustration even if it wasn't the main centre for dealing with Ebola in the [UK.http://www.itv.com/news/update/2014-10-13/uk-ebola-cases-will-be-sent-to-royal-free-hospital/] Siuenti (talk) 14:24, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Projected date for UK Ebola-free declaration?
7 March 2015 will be 42 days from January 24 2015, the date when Pauline Cafferkey was declared disease-free and released from hospital, so. if there are no further cases in the UK, we should be watching for a WHO announcement around that date to declare the UK Ebola-free. It's possible that the announcement might occur earlier, if she was found to have been virus-free from before that date, but the decision is not ours to make. It's also just possible that the announcement could come even earlier if they were just considering Scotland alone, since the number of known cases in Scotland reached zero even earlier, when she was medevaced to London on 29 December 2014, and medevac cases don't count toward the Ebola status.-- The Anome (talk) 15:37, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Pauline Cafferkey
Someone may wish to update the Pauline Cafferkey section in the light of this news item: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-37121505. 109.153.242.25 (talk) 16:31, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Pauline Cafferkey
The Pauline Cafferkey section of this article went into an unnecessary level of detail for an article subsection. She has also clearly become independently notable, due to her repeated appearances in the news. I've moved all the detailed material out into a separate Pauline Cafferkey article, and have thus been able to greatly reduce the level of detail on her this article. -- The Anome (talk) 13:16, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
 * very good idea--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:36, 6 October 2016 (UTC)