However,
1) Average time from infection to death is twelve (12) days - you either die or you recover (on average) after that and are no longer part of the “active case” pool.
But oddly enough a person infected with Ebola only becomes infectious *after* they exhibit symptoms. According to the CDC, “Symptoms may appear anywhere from 2 to 21 days after exposure to Ebola, but the average is 8 to 10 days.”
Importantly, 5 to 7 days after exhibiting symptoms, a person is very sick, likely incapacitated, and thus far less able to spread the disease beyond their immediate family.
So the actual “window” of public infection is just 5 to 7 days. This is the real genius of a 3 day quarantine, because if you take 3 days out of a 5 or 7 day period, it will keep the vast majority of infected people out of circulation when they are most contagious.
During this time, teams are sent door to door to ask if anyone in the home is sick. This polices up the sick people and identifies their families as being at risk.
Importantly, epidemics work with what is called a “brush fire” approach. Unless they have a ‘reservoir’ that can restart the epidemic if it is extinguished in an area, it *must* continue to infect new victims or it will “burn out”.
I watched a BBC YouTube video about Ebola. I think people who live in Africa are afraid of Western medicine and the West discourages African burial practices that follow African culture and customs. The suspicion of Western medicine might cause the Ebola problem to continue to come back again many times.
I watched a BBC YouTube video about Ebola. I think people who live in Africa are afraid of Western medicine and the West discourages African burial practices that follow African culture and customs. The suspicion of Western medicine might cause the Ebola problem to continue to come back again many times.