alt Hacker News"It is unclear how that [closure of US-AID program] might have affected the response to this outbreak."
But, we'll just throw that in to the story anyway, even though we have no facts either way.
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> we'll just throw that in to the story anyway, even though we have no facts either way
We don't have a tight chain of causation. But we have plenty of facts pointing entirely one way.
We know there was "a critical four-week detection gap between the onset of symptoms of the presumed index case...and the laboratory confirmation of the outbreak" [1]. This has contributed to "significant uncertainties to the true number of infected persons and geographic spread associated with this event at the present time" [2]. And tying all of this back to DOGE, we know USAID's "more than 50 staffers dedicated to outbreak response" were cut to "just six people to handle Ebola, Marburg virus, mpox and bird flu preparedness" [3].
Musk and Trump didn't cause this outbreak. But we would have had a better chance of catching this sooner, and with more precision, if we had those resources there.
[1] https://www.who.int/emergencies/disease-outbreak-news/item/2...
[2] https://www.who.int/news/item/17-05-2026-epidemic-of-ebola-d...
[3] https://www.spyuganda.com/another-one-us-cuts-aid-to-fight-e...
Just wondering, do you think it's not relevant to help the reader understand context on the US' impact? Positive or negative?
It’s unclear because we don’t yet know all the consequences of the shutdown of USAID. But, I think it’s perfectly reasonable for people to wonder if the closure of an agency that worked extensively in developing countries worldwide and might have had front line data about this outbreak could have affected the response.