I don't doubt that we'll have to be careful if Ebola emerges here, but I do doubt that the spread would be as extreme. That would be, in part, because a percentage of the population is ready to self-quarantine.
Yep, two entirely different worlds.
A typical American home is full of porcelain and stainless steel surfaces, a laundry room, tubs and showers, screened windows, scalding hot water, bleach and antiseptics, air conditioning and communications, and people who can understand and follow basic medical instructions, and that will eagerly seek more knowledge and solutions to such medical threats to their families.
Our people eat vitamins and walk through drugstores and pharmacy and cleanser and disinfectant sections of grocery stores that are extraordinary, yet just a part of our daily shopping for bread and milk.
We are many stages ahead of where the Africans are. Even in mass catastrophes we have huge modern buildings to move people, to warehouse them and still have modern plumbing, and electricity and easy access and such, we even have vast amounts of plastic and construction goods and Home Depot materials and bedding to set up makeshift clinics in warehouses and other buildings, that again, would be the envy of African medical people. We even have the ability to move resources vast distances almost instantly, for example from Seattle to Chicago if needed.
None of this cures Ebola, but it sure is a different reality than what those poor saps in Africa face.