Ebola is less contagious than the flu. Fact.

[TorchTheWitch]

95. and the flu isn't in the same universe as deadly

Yes, many people die from the flu, but those people are the very young, old, immune compromised, have some other illness or disorder that compromises fighting it off, those people with a lack of medication to reduce fever and prevent pneumonia and not seeking hospital care until it's too late.

Ebola kills from 50 to 90 percent of those people it infects regardless of age, state of health or level of care. Though this strain is less deadly than past strains at something like 70% it is also far more virulent in that previous outbreaks occurred in Central Africa where humanity is sparse while this outbreak has occurred in West Africa where there are hundreds of thousands of people mashed into a relatively small areas... a small village miles from any other human that has an outbreak is not so difficult to contain, but this outbreak has occurred in highly populated areas that makes it nearly impossible to contain. It's been reported by the CDC that they expect by the time it is over considering it doesn't spread past the hot zones where it's been it will have killed 21,000 people within a small area compared to the rest of the country not to mention the rest of the world.

Add to that the fact that virtually no one has any immunity to it unlike flu strains.

No one gets the flu with the real knowledge that they are very likely going to die. Ebola is also a hideous way to die. It is just about the ugliest and most lethal virus known. No one approaches a patient with the flu in strict isolation covered from head to toe in a hazmat suit that has to be sprayed with bleach with every patient contact. But with Ebola it is VITAL.

Comparing Ebola - particularly this outbreak - to the common flu is an obscenity. Might as well also compare it to the medieval black/red plague. Just as then as now with people just throwing the dead bodies of their families out the door and leaving them there.

It is not NOW a disease we should fear since we have as of right NOW one single patient with Ebola. Don't even try to tell that to the people in the hot spots in West Africa. This one single patient would have also been nothing to fear had he sought medical help BEFORE he got symptoms and told them he had been exposed. Instead an incompetent hospital allowed to him come into contact with 100 people they KNOW OF for four days while he was contagious. And rather than these people being put into strict isolation they are merely being quarantined at home with their non-exposed families or roommates left on their own and just trusted not to leave or allow anyone that doesn't live in these homes contact with them. Even Nigeria isolated people that had been known to have been exposed and not sending them home to possibly infect their families/neighbors once they became symptomatic.

Given how many people came into contact with him while he was symptomatic it is guaranteed that he isn't going to be the only one infected. The average window from exposure to symptoms is 8 to 10 days. With this one infected person it has now been only 7 days (as it is now past midnight) since he was admitted to the hospital. Symptoms can also not appear for up to 21 days from the day of infection.

If anything, the media and the CDC have downplayed the seriousness of this outbreak by not explaining what "direct contact" with a symptomatic infected person means, making claims that an epidemic couldn't happen here, etc. It's only in the past couple of days that "direct contact" with an infected symptomatic person means less than six feet away from them or anything they may have left virus infected droplets on to be picked up by non-infected people as the virus lives in quantity in micro droplets of bodily fluids that also include sweat, and fluids forced out through sneezing or coughing and that the virus can live in these minute droplets for hours particularly on smooth surfaces such as counters, doorknobs, etc. I remind you that these long living viruses in micro droplets on doorknobs, train/bus poles for unseated passengers, handlebars on shopping carts, etc. is how most people tend to pick up the common cold or flu.