OK, I'll down vote you and explain why: your studied inability or unwillingness to do math, to whit, what a disease like Ebola can do in a 3rd World urban environment (or village/small town ones different than the former locations of outbreaks), specifically double the number of infections approximately every 3 weeks.
Right now this Ebola outbreak gives every sign of having the potential to be the most significant public health event in a number of centuries. Like, maybe we'll end up having to go back to the 1346–1350 Black Death for comparison, unless we can develop, test, produce and distribute a vaccine very quickly.
The CDC's worst case, last I heard, was 1.4 total million infected with Ebola in January. At the current estimate of 70% lethality, there's your 1M million people 10-16 days after infection.
Then it all doubles in 3 weeks. And another 3 weeks.
Do the math.
If you want to be conservative, dial the starting point back, it won't matter for long. But when I did my own calculations, I found 20,000 cases as of a week or two ago (a fairly conservative guess at the true number) would get you to 1.4 million in January.
> The CDC's worst case, last I heard, was 1.4 total million infected with Ebola in January.
That was a "no new action" estimate in late September based on data through late August [1]. There has been considerable new action since late August (in part based on the report, or, to the extent that the action in some cases preceded the report, at least an understanding of the general principles behind it.)
Your assumption for those numbers is that it will keep doubling everywhere it goes, correct? For example, Nigeria seems to have stamped it out in Lagos, refuting the idea that it automatically breaks out exponentially in "3rd World urban environments".
"what a disease like Ebola can do in a 3rd World urban environment"
Nowhere did I say or ever imply that it "automatically breaks out exponentially" in such environments, just that in this outbreak, it has, and I would hope you would not deny it could in others.
At some point, the danger of handling the bodies of those who die of Ebola will sink into the public consciousness there. The worst case scenario assumes no modification of burial practices.
Note that the article dragonwriter linked says safe burials would have the outbreak ending soon after January:
If, by late December 2014, approximately 70% of patients were placed either in ETUs or home or in a community setting such that there is a reduced risk for disease transmission (including safe burial when needed), then the epidemic in both countries would almost be ended by January 20, 2015
Indeed, there can and eventually inevitably will be changes that decrease R-nought, presumably below 1 where it will then "burn out". Eventually the afflicted region(s) will be decided into those whose behaviors, for whatever reason, do not divided transmission, and those that do, with the latter containing a few survivors (of the myriad other things that kill weakened people as well as of Ebola).
But I'm pretty sure we don't know all that's going on with this outbreak in non-village settings, how mobility of people in this Western region vs. the prior outbreaks in Central Africa is affecting things, how ingrained these burial practices are, etc. We hypothesize, but only time will tell which, if any of these are correct.
However, one of the things I'm concerned about is what happens if or when it hits Latin America, which would then have very direct consequences on the US.
Right now this Ebola outbreak gives every sign of having the potential to be the most significant public health event in a number of centuries. Like, maybe we'll end up having to go back to the 1346–1350 Black Death for comparison, unless we can develop, test, produce and distribute a vaccine very quickly.