Hans Rosling

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“We Are Fighting A Low Intensity Epidemic”

November 12, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Reducing and managing Ebola cases in Liberia is a doable mission, but bringing fresh instances down to zero a much tougher one. Swedish academic and doctor Hans Rosling, a supporter of washing machines, has temporarily made Liberia his home, hoping to make sense of the statistics and aid in the elimination of the virus, a complicated thing since the illness has a Whac-a-Mole propensity for popping up everywhere. From Ben Carter at the BBC:

“Last month Rosling moved to the Liberian capital, Monrovia to work with the Ministry of Health where his task is to analyse the statistics to see how the virus is spreading and find the best way to tackle it.

He says that the number of new daily cases has dropped dramatically over the past few months and has plateaued in recent weeks.

‘Ebola in Liberia started coming over the border into Lofa County, then it moved down during the summer and hit the capital, Monrovia, really badly in August and September. But now the numbers in the capital are down from 75 a day to 25 a day,’ says Rosling.

He argues that using a daily figure gives a more accurate representation of what’s going on right now. ‘Take Lofa county for instance where they’ve had 365 cases cumulatively but the last week it was zero, zero, zero, zero every day.’

Despite this drop, Rosling says one of the biggest challenges facing Liberia is that every single county has seen new cases of Ebola in recent weeks.

‘This means we are fighting a low intensity epidemic. It flares up in one of the counties, it’s controlled there and then it jumps up in another place. This will take time to get rid of.'”

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“We Have Entered Into The Age Of Peak Child!”

November 10, 2013 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Hans Rosling, he of the famous TED Talk about washing machines, presents five reasons to be optimistic about the future of the world and its inhabitants, for the BBC Magazine. Here’s the opening entry, about population, a tricky subject that often makes fools of analysts:

“1. Fast population growth is coming to an end

It’s a largely untold story – gradually, steadily the demographic forces that drove the global population growth in the 20th Century have shifted. Fifty years ago the world average fertility rate – the number of babies born per woman – was five. Since then, this most important number in demography has dropped to 2.5 – something unprecedented in human history – and fertility is still trending downwards. It’s all thanks to a powerful combination of female education, access to contraceptives and abortion, and increased child survival.

The demographic consequences are amazing. In the last decade the global total number of children aged 0-14 has levelled off at around two billion, and UN population experts predict that it is going to stay that way throughout this century. That’s right: the amount of children in the world today is the most there will be! We have entered into the age of Peak Child! The population will continue to grow as the Peak Child generation grows up and grows old. So most probably three or four billion new adults will be added to the world population – but then in the second half of this century the fast growth of the world population will finally come to an end.”

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“This Box Contains One Billion People”

November 2, 2011 in Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Hans Rosling, the Swedish doctor who did a great TED Talk about washing machines and democracy, returns to that forum to explain our world population in terms of Ikea products. (Thanks Open Culture.)

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“If You Have Democracy, People Will Vote For Washing Machines”

March 22, 2011 in Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Billions of people on the planet still wash their clothes by hand. Swedish academic and doctor Hans Rosling uses this fact as a jumping-off point for a great TED talk about industrialization and environmentalism.

From “Fifteen Hundred Knuckles at the Tub,” an article in the December 28, 1854 Brooklyn Daily Eagle, as reprinted from the Charleston Courier: “The latest invention is a new washing machine at the Astor House. It is called the ‘great knuckle.’ In the card of the owner it is stated that the new machine is saving from ten to fifteen girls a day, in the wash-room at the Astor House. A vial washing machine man at the Crystal Palace offered a cup valued at $50, to any person who could produce anything that would beat his. The great knuckle washing-machine man will give a cup valued at $500 to any one who will bring his machine to the Astor House, and wash one dozen pieces while he is washing three dozen! He says that instead of using one pair of knuckles, as old Eve commenced with, his machine is a combination of from 200 to 1,500. Great are the merits of washing mahcines!”

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