GREAT post. Thank you.
I've been reluctant to post this since it's completely personal experience but it seems to be more relevant as time passes.
I first heard about Ebola during a microbiology lab in 1998. Our lab instructor was working on a PhD in epidemiology. Since the lab work rarely extended the full three hours allotted, and the lecture professor insisted we remain in lab the entire allotted time, the lab instructor started playing "what if" games with pathogens. He was the first person I heard describe Ebola as a "molecular shark," and he was the first I heard admit that most of what is claimed "known" about Ebola is derived from incomplete/suspect epidemiological data. As a result of that lab, I became fascinated with Ebola (yeah, I know) and have followed every outbreak since. Not in a professional venue but as an interested and reasonably educated observer.
During a few Ebola "what if" games, he listed various assumptions about transmission vectors and we students debated whether or not Ebola could escape rural central Africa and threaten the world based on those assumptions. I tended to side with the "it can't happen here" contingent as long as the only transmission vector was direct contact with copious amounts of bodily fluids. When the assumption was aerosol, airborne, and/or fomites, I vacillated between the camps.
The one thing none of us on either side of the debates ever imagined was the complete ineptitude of the CDC and WHO. It was never stated outright but everyone, even the instructor, assumed that those two entities would function appropriately. It was a given, never questioned.
As I watch this play out I can't help but recall those "what if" games and shudder. I wonder if my former classmates are also recalling those games and if so, how they are responding.
Anyway, it's good to see my assertions regarding the multitude of unknowns verified by recognized experts but I sure wish we'd made more progress between '98 and 2014. And I really wish the CDC/WHO were at least minimally competent. Watching the "risk communications" is driving me up a wall.