For the 'those are third worlders, we're superior and it can't happen here' set, all I can say is that our technology gives us myriad common contact surfaces, waiting to be contaminated and pass on their viral load. The potential for communicating infection is astounding, the ramifications mind-boggling. Rub an eye, pick at your teeth, put a stick of gum or a mint in your mouth after having grabbed the door handle, used the handrail, pushed the elevator button...and you could be dead without even knowing how you got it.
Yep. Although something like handling dead bodies is an even higher-risk behavior that few of us are in the habit of doing.
For the 'those are third worlders, we're superior and it can't happen here'
Of course it can happen here. However, high-level biocontainment patient care units here really are superior and, as long as they aren't overwhelmed, can "handle" the cases presented to them (without allowing the infection to spread beyond that population).
The best example test of that I’ve heard is “put hot sauce on your fingers and see how long it takes for your eyes, nose or lips to burn”...
Exactly.
Through one of the links to a video series on this thread that I watched, an African Ebola doctor/scientist described one patient becoming infected from a doorknob.
One need only visit emergency rooms during flu season to see what might transpire, if Ebola were to get a foothold in the US. With the first symptoms presenting same as the flu, it could be our worst nightmare.
I really don’t get all the comparisons to AIDS. Truly, if AIDS were as infectious as Ebola, it would have wiped out a huge swath of humanity already.