Yikes is right on....when you think of how many workers come in contact with these people in life and death....even funeral directors or employees. Hospital personnel, and how many people they may have sneezed on in the public before being quarantined...it goes on and on.
The Black Death that killed 2/3 of Europe’s population is likened to E bola in some articles.....
I know some make that comparison. But it’s really, really stupid to do so.
Ebola has a similar death rate to the Black Death.
But if it was as infectious as BD, we’d have millions, probably many tens, possibly hundreds of millions of cases by now, not the still <10,000 so far confirmed.
I’m aware the “real” number of cases is probably a multiple of the confirmed cases, so let’s assume it’s 50,000 or even 100,000. Doesn’t change my point much.
I think it’s also reasonable to note that apparently a person is only slightly infectious in early stages of symptoms, becoming more and more so as the disease progresses. After death the body is essentially one big block of trillions or quadrillions of viruses, so it is wildly infectious.
I haven’t seen anything definitive about how long a corpse remains that infectious. What I know about this particular virus, which is pretty fragile, means that the viruses probably die off pretty quickly after death. I’ll try to find some confirmation on that.
Here’s a source that says decomposing bodies remain infectious for only three or four days. They’re talking about gorilla bodies, but I can’t see any reason human bodies would be any different. Presumably infectiousness would drop off quickly after the first day or so.
Also good solid general information.
https://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Ebola_virus