So, funny story.

Yeah, fuckin' laugh out loud, eh? Had me rolling around holding my gut :/

The one saving grace of Ebola is that it isn't, or at least isn't easily, transmitted in an airborne way. It seems the transmission mechanism isn't super well understood, from what I gather, but that whatever the case, it's not very transmittable.

The other leg up we have is infrastructure. That is, there's no way it could spread as quickly in the West as in Africa, not to mention that our treatment regimes are far superior (hell, they don't even have enough gloves in many treatment centers by all accounts). Nobody knows what the death rate would be if there were infections in the US or Europe, but they sure as fuck wouldn't be anywhere near what they are in Africa.

That said, you're right that north of a billion poor souls currently reside in Africa, and God help them. Seems like all the experts think that this is going to get a lot uglier before it gets better. If I'm not mistaken the WHO estimated recently that 20,000 people will likely get infected, and it seems like the mathematicians are all laughing that out of the water.

I'd be scared shitless right now if I were in one of those barricaded slums of Freetown or Monrovia. If the disease doesn't get you, the soldiers will. But what's the alternative?