>>I don't think luck is involved. Ebola is _hard_ to transmit. It requires direct contact with body fluids. As we've already seen, health care workers are at some risk. The general public is not.
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>>As for the Spanish case, looks like she tested positive on 10/6, so we'll know for sure by 10/27 whether anyone else was infected.
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>>I'll also point that Nigeria has now been declared Ebola-free. There were cases, but even there, in a third-world country known for its corruption, the public health authorities were able to contain and eradicate the disease.
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>>Americans are at much higher (like multiple orders of magnitude) risk of dying from flu than of dying from Ebola.
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>Couple of things....the 21 day window applies about 95% of the time, but it can be as high as about 40 days.
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>It is true, statistically, far more Americans die from the flu than from Ebola. But if contracted, Ebola obviously is far deadlier. The mild panic we've seen in this country is sort of misplaced. I highly, highly doubt we'll have anything beyond the very few scattered cases, but the concern is really more for the number of rather serious mistakes that have been made.

Clearly, there were mistakes, but I think one of the key things to notice here is that even after the hospital sent Duncan home with Ebola, the people he was living with didn't come down with the disease. That certainly says something about difficulty of transmission.

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>As for Nigeria and the declaration, I think a few months will need to pass for that to bear out. I certainly hope it's true, but I'll believe it when I see it.

The last new case in Nigeria was diagnosed on Sept. 5, so 46 days ago. Sounds pretty solid to me.

Tamar