That was a lot of work, thank you for sharing.
I have only one question did you or is there even a way to take in account situations in which because of the death rate in combination of the lack of and deterioration of health service allows for both the increase spread and even higher death rate because of the lack of support treatment?
I did not take that into account. But I think it is at least partially included in the Daily Transmission Rate (DTR), since the DTR was calculated based on the actual spread of Ebola under the conditions you describe.
I think a bigger limitation of the model is that it relies on reported cases, and there is plenty of evidence, and even testimony before Congress from people who would know, that the reported cases underestimate the true size of the epidemic by a factor of at least 2, and possibly as much as 4.
My spreadsheet allows me to assume any percentage of underreporting, but I chose not to publish those numbers, since no one really knows. The numbers, based on the reported cases only, are frightening enough.
I plan to publish the spreadsheet once I pretty it up and finish updating all the references for the sources of data. You can do those calculations then, if you want.
Another big limitation of the model as it stands now, is that it doesn't account for the decrease in the number of "available victims" as the population in a given area dies out. I'm pondering that one.
I am not sure what you are asking. However, I will throw some answers out and hope one of them addresses your question.
In infectious disease, the paradigm is that the more deadly an infection is, the less likely it is to spread. That's because the infected person dies quickly without having a chance to infect others. I think that there have probably been sporadic Ebola (and Marburg) outbreaks for millenia, but it was never identified because until recently, Africans never traveled outside of their villages much. Thus, the whole village would die and the infection would stop there. Ebola is a problem now because it reached populated, highly mobile areas.
The health care systems in the affected countries are horrible. Without care, the death rate is very high. With care, the death rate is somewhat lower (it is less than 60%, which makes it more mild than past outbreaks). With top-of-the-line care, the death rate would probably be far lower. This is strictly supportive care--electrolytes and treatment of complications.