The American CDC is now predicting up to 550,000 Ebola victims by the end of this year.
You can argue over the numbers, but once the numbers get “big” it really does not matter. LONG BEFORE numbers that high are reached the general populations in the worst hit countries will panic. Infrastructure, such as it is, will surely break down. So will law and order. It will be panic fueled chaos.
Desperate people will do desperate things. MANY will flee, and enough of them will be infected for this thing to spread.
This should be obvious, but it bears repeating anyway.
The WHO, and FReepers here have arrived with figures on the same order of magnitude. (hundreds of thousands). I pray that doesn't happen, but it looks as if nothing short of a miracle will stop the outbreak short of that.
Yes, the 'privileged' of those societies, the wealthy (and there are some), and even those capable of exerting meaningful force (militarily or paramilitarily) will all try to escape, whether infected or not.
That precedent has already been established.
With the relatively short quarantine of the West Point slum in Monrovia we saw the reaction to authority that can be expected when things start to get bad. People will either show their most noble and heroic natures, or the worst will come out. So it is under pressure.
It is likely these reactions will spread the disease further afield, to other countries and districts, and will require what many will feel is an unseemly level of force to interdict. The cure, in that instance, will be as ugly as the disease.
I think it is folly for anyone to assume human nature is any different in any group of humans which has a cross section of society, regardless of technological level, average IQ, or any of the other factors some people presume would make behaviour any different here under similar circumstances.
The only defense against suffering such ugliness ourselves at home is to prevent the disease from ever getting loose on our shores.