Gunshot wounds are contagious; bullets spread like the flu, study finds

[CharlesDavenport]

Gun violence can ripple through social networks and communities just like an infectious germ, Harvard and Yale researchers reported Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine. This may not seem surprising, because earlier work has found that gun violence often clusters in certain areas and groups, particularly those steeped in gangs and drugs. But this study is the first to show that gun violence spreads directly from person to person after shootings—it’s not just about growing up in the same rough neighborhood or having the same risk factors.

Hmm. So Harvard and Yale figured out that people will arm themselves and shoot back when shot at. Genius.

Policy implications?

The finding is good news, because, after decades of research, scientists are pretty good at predicting how infections cascade through populations. Applying disease-based theories and simulations to gun violence could help health workers get ahead of bullets and intervene before violence spreads. A more informed strategy could also cut down on intervention tactics that “rest largely on geographic or group-based policing efforts that tend to disproportionately affect disadvantaged minority communities,” the authors argue.

Finally we have scientific evidence that "intervention tactics" that rely on geographic or group-based policing wouldn't be effective. So Chicago should feel vindicated.

Since gun violence is a disease, we can stop blaming the shooters, and start treating the bigger problem with health workers.

There is an incubation period for this disease -

The analysis also suggested that gun violence transmission has an “incubation” period—which, in terms of disease, is the gap between being sneezed on and when you actually get sick. The researchers found an average of 125 days between when an individual experienced gun violence and when their “infector” experienced gun violence.

The more time beyond that 125-day period, the more likely it was that an “exposed” person wouldn’t actually catch the gun violence illness. Researchers didn’t have enough data to figure out why some people didn’t catch the disease and others did—it’s a question for the next study, they suggested. They also don’t know how well the infectious disease modeling will work in other cities, which have different gun laws, gang activity, public housing policies, segregation, and more.

There is more work to do to understand why some people don't get the disease. We need another study to understand these law abiding outliers. More government money please.

So finally we understand the problem and how to treat it -

Nevertheless, the researchers think that modeling gun violence like disease outbreaks could point heath workers to specific networks and individuals in need of intervention.

If they have to go down this road, how about calling police antibodies, and comparing Chicago with cities that have more, and more effective antibodies?

You just cannot make this **** up.

http://arstechnica.com/science/2017...ious-bullets-spread-like-the-flu-study-finds/

 

[BLITZ]

They could go a little further with this and say Rahm Emmanuel is the Host and to get rid of the disease, you have to get rid of the host.

 

[CharlesDavenport]

They could go a little further with this and say Rahm Emmanuel is the Host and to get rid of the disease, you have to get rid of the host.

Patient Zero.

 

[deljzc]

Maybe it's a way to talk around "profiling", because much of what it says hinges on PREDICTING where gun violence happens. We all know the best way to predict it, but that has been determined to be "racial profiling" and we can't talk about that way anymore.

Maybe calling it a "disease" is a nicer way to put it. But the minute the data comes back to correlate to race, someone will cry "racism!" and "stereotypes!" and "profiling!" and we'll have to start the whole process over again with a different methodology to get around the P.C. police.

 

[Tim Steelersfan]

Maybe calling it a "disease" is a nicer way to put it. But the minute the data comes back to correlate to race, someone will cry "racism!" and "stereotypes!" and "profiling!" and we'll have to start the whole process over again with a different methodology to get around the P.C. police.

..which in the end means we'll not get to a solution because "Racism" will always stand in the way of cleaning up violent neighborhoods.