No, Seriously, How Contagious Is Ebola?

[Old Crow]

34. Are you asking if I believe the Corrected trend lines are inaccurate?

If so, no, I trust the epidemiologists who authored the model. They based their estimates of underreporting on the history of previous epidemics and math. I'm certainly not in a position to second-guess them.

You haven't asked, but to cut to the chase, here's my take on the situation.

1. The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is deadly serious and is going to result in shocking numbers of dead in the coming months. We haven't seen nothing yet in terms of the number of fatalities.

2. That said, provided the biology of the virus doesn't change, it is extremely unlikely that more than a dozen people within the U.S. will die of the disease. We have the CDC, thank God, and the resources to handle a highly deadly, but not very contagious, disease. Africa, alas, does not.

3. The frightening asterisk to this whole situation, which isn't discussed that often, is the possibility--remote, but possible--that the virus will mutate. Ebola is not very contagious now. If it mutates in just the right fashion, all bets are off. However remote the possibilities of a mutation are, every transmission of the disease from one individual to another provides the virus with more opportunity to make that lucky genetic leap that will allow it to find new hosts by a cough or sneeze. Since this is the largest outbreak of Ebola on record, the disease is being afforded more opportunities to mutate than ever before. Essentially, what is now going on in Africa is the creation---and illness, and often death--of thousands of human petri dishes. Soon, those human petri dishes will number in the tens of thousands and possibly hundreds of thousands. It is absolutely in the best interest of the United States that we do everything we can to extinguish this Ebola flare-up as quickly as possible.

4. Having said all of the above, Americans who are not working face-to-face with Ebola patients would make far better use of their time by scheduling a flu shot in the weeks ahead than by watching Fox News and worrying about a disease that poses far, far less a threat to them than a lightning strike, a car accident, or a bad case of the flu.

Hope that helps.