Importantly the 3-day quarantine seems to work quite well, as it breaks up the timetable of the spread of the disease.
In fact, it works so well, that the US should consider a similar, but much more managed version itself, not just for Ebola, but for other diseases as well. Here is what is needed:
1) An accurate understanding of the incubation period length in days, as well as a subset of that, the length of time during which an infected person can easily communicate the disease. Importantly, the quarantine only has to last for *part* of these times to be effective.
2) A practical estimation of the spread of the disease from a given outbreak point (”patient zero”). This is a physical area in which infections are rated at “severe”, such as in the same home; and “moderate”, such as a workplace, market or other recently visited public area. This limits any quarantine and notification area to the riskier places.
3) Response teams that poll the quarantine area, first by phone and then on foot if needed. For larger areas, an automatic phone bank could systematically poll every phone in the quarantine area, for information and to offer assistance.
None of this is particularly radical, from a public health viewpoint, as this is just a modernized version of how quarantines used to be done. That is, all physicians carried quarantine signs in their black bags. Its improvement is that it quarantines smaller areas and is more responsive to the people in those areas.
Here is some practical follow-on to your comments:
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.
2) Using this reasoning, I have been tracking the Ebola “active case” pool size now since last fall (for Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone combined).
a) Largest “active case” pool size spiked to just over 3000 on November 6, 2014. (Epidemic phase)
b) The “active case” pool size steeply declined to about 645 by January 22, 2015. (Pandemic avoided)
c) The “active case” pool size has now stubbornly held at an average of 648 from January 22, 2015 to today, March 19, 2015. (Endemic phase)
This thing just refuses to go away. It is simmering on the back burner.
If treatment efforts are disrupted, it could easily flare up again and go out of control. (Think war in the Middle East, economic collapse, or both.)