Civilization is fragile even in the healthiest of cultures. But the erosion of our culture has been extensive.
Imagine the media coverage and government response if 1000 Americans got Ebola. 50x that number die from Influenza or Pneumococcal Disease every year, but this perspective will be lost. Whatever veneer of public trust remains will fall away.
And we're nowhere close to being the healthiest of cultures anymore.
As I am going to say, America doesn’t have that many strict isolation Wards in a given hospital. It won’t take too many cases of ebola to overload the isolation units. If ebola makes it into the slums or the homeless people, you will see it spread like a brush fire. If it gets far enough before containment, a huge fraction of the entire U.S. population will die in not so much time.