Instead of sweating it out in shack along an open sewer where kids play...the infected will be in hospital.
That's the difference.
Yeah, those unfortunate enough to get it will likely die a horrible death, but it's not AS likely to spread in a civilized country.
I think you are too optimistic.
One of the reasons Ebola has been contained in the past was it tended to emerge in rural areas in Africa, where there’s not a lot of mobility and travel. It is very lethal, so it tends to burn out before it has a chance to spread under those circumstances. Imagine trying to contain it after someone on an international flight to Ohare is sick, and manages to infect some passengers. They will quickly disperse across the US and the world. In the US the high mobility will make containment a problem. If an outbreak were identified in Chicago people would be fleeing by plane, car, bus and train. People who were ill would swamp the ERs and it would quickly spread from there. Trust me, our hospitals are NOT set up to deal with a large number of highly contagious, critically I’ll patients. The incubation period is 2 days to 3 weeks, and initial symptoms are non specific, muscle aches, fever, nausea vomiting etc. patients can become infectious within 2 days of becoming symptomatic, although more typical 4-5 days. A LOT of people can be exposed before we have clue that this isn’t just a run of the virus we are dealing with.....
http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/pdf/vhf-interim-guidance.pdf
I don’t think the CDC or the Surgeon General are as confidant as you are about limiting spread. I was part of the medical emergency response system after 911 and the scenarios for smallpox ( admittedly spreads airborn) were terrifying. Don’t see Ebola as that much different .