The issue for us is whether the Ebola outbreaks in America will be confined to easily isolated instances before sufficient vaccines become available, not whether it comes here at all. We can't wall ourselves off from the rest of the world. If Ebola becomes horrifically widespread in Africa, which IMO depends chiefly on Nigeria, it will become a serious health threat in the US too.
Also note that the whole world's economy is very much dependent on exports of strategic materials from sub-Saharan Africa. There will be very serious economic and financial consequences worldwide, including here, if those exports are significantly reduced due to Ebola's effects in Africa.
If demographically significant quarantines are imposed in the US to defeat an impending Ebola epidemic here, our economy might well collapse from that and ensuing panic. The result of such a collapse would be wiping out of personal and business savings, excepting stock equities but definitely including bonds, and a currency exchange. Bill Quick describes this in his novel, _Lightning Fall_, which AFAIK is the ONLY apocalyptic novel to address such issues.
Black Agnes mentioned the spread of Ebola on urban mass transit, which assumes that mass transit systems will operate at all. Those will be the first to be closed down during a significant Ebola quarantine here. Consider the economic implications of that.
Nigeria copped a big break with Sawyer.
Firstly, he was ‘somebody’. So when he crashed out at the airport he was whisked away in a private conveyance to a private hospital. Where he was examined immediately on arrival and placed into a private room.
I do wonder if he was a super spreader like the kid mentioned up thread. Because he was still very much alive 5 days after he crashed out in the airport. Alive and well enough to yank the IV’s out of his arm and attempt to run out of the hospital.
I still think there’s a non zero chance he got capped for this by hospital security or got an injection of ‘somethingorother’ and that’s why so many medicos got it. They were piled on him holding him down. It would explain the ‘hero’ treatment they got after all this was made public.
Nevertheless, had Sawyer been a businessman or an ordinary citizen he may have had to take himself to a hospital or clinic. Riding public transportation along the way for that. And then sit in the ER or waiting room for who knows how long, all the while infecting many people along the way...
But I am heartened by Nigeria’s being a firewall for this. So far.