The H1N1 swine flu pandemic killed more than 284,000 people worldwide in 2009 and 2010.
CDC data - “Each year in the United States, at least 2 million people become infected with bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics and at least 23,000 people die each year as a direct result of these infections. Many more people die from other conditions that were complicated by an antibiotic-resistant infection.”
“In 2012, 90 percent of the world’s malaria deaths occurred in Africa and about 460,000 African children died before their fifth birthdays,” the WHO 2013 malaria report said.”
“Diarrhea — a preventable and treatable condition — kills about 1.5 million children each year — more than malaria, AIDS and measles combined, according to global health organizations.”
Now these are good points about diarrheas, malaria and flu are good points to remember. They do help put the Ebola epidemic in perspective.
But they're not the only points to keep in mind. The fact remains that there is a disease spreading at an exponential rate. This disease kills at a rate of over 50%. It is relatively unknown and suspected of being highly mutatable. Health care workers are contracting and dying from this disease at a staggering rate, in areas where trained health care workers are scarce to begin with, and the loss of any one of which will make it that much harder to stop the epidemic. The disease kills its victims in a particularly gruesome way, which only adds to the panic. The people on the front lines of fighting this disease are overwhelmed.
So just because Obama and the media are now paying attention to Ebola, and just because there aren't yet 100,000 dying every day, that doesn't mean it doesn't deserve the attention it's getting.
Let’s refresh on the whole “exponential” thing.
Some wit plotted the exponential increase of Ebola, on the assumption that it actually was exponential. Let’s see how exponential it behaves.
Mar, 2014 – Infected: 104 Dead: 62
Apr, 2014 – Infected: 203 Dead: 122
May, 2014 – Infected: 417 Dead: 250
Jun, 2014 – Infected: 898 Dead: 539
Jul, 2014 – Infected: 2,031 Dead: 1,218
Aug, 2014 – Infected: 4,821 Dead: 2,892
Sep, 2014 – Infected: 12,016 Dead: 7,210
Oct, 2014 – Infected: 31,448 Dead: 18,869
Nov, 2014 – Infected: 86,421 Dead: 51,853
Dec, 2014 – Infected: 249,365 Dead: 149,619
Jan, 2015 – Infected: 755,513 Dead: 453,308
Feb, 2015 – Infected: 2,403,461 Dead: 1,442,077
Mar, 2015 – Infected: 8,028,264 Dead: 4,816,958
Apr, 2015 – Infected: 28,157,589 Dead: 16,894,553
May, 2015 – Infected: 103,695,185 Dead: 62,217,111
Jun, 2015 – Infected: 400,969,208 Dead: 240,581,525
Jul, 2015 – Infected: 1,627,993,821 Dead: 976,796,293
Aug, 2015 – Infected: 6,940,388,486 Dead: 4,164,233,092