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[–] CommonSense 1 point 0 points (+1|-1) ago 

There have been a total of 27,748 cases of Ebola in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone up to 26 July, with 11,279 reported deaths

So, wait...only 30k in all of history up to July 26? and only 12k deaths? That's nothing. It's definitely not "devastating."

I'm glad they claim they can beat it, but come on. We were lead to believe there was some major outbreak heading our (first world) way.

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[–] TalkingAnimal 0 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago  (edited ago)

Part of the worry was how concentrated the infections were. Some towns were pretty much wiped out. Think about if a few American towns were completely destroyed by a disease. Plus, this isn't like the flu where most people who get it are fine. People who got it had a high mortality rate.

In Liberia, about 1 in 800 people of the total population died from Ebola. That would be on part with 400000 Americans dying if you compare the populations.

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[–] CommonSense 1 point -1 points (+0|-1) ago  (edited ago)

Well, the mortality rate wasn't that high. It was under 40%. And, that is in areas of extreme malnutrition.

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[–] oooooo 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

Imagine a mortality rate of 40% in a disease in your own country. That's not a trivial mortality rate.

According to wikipedia, this was the most widespread epidemic of the Ebola virus ever. And a significant percentage of those cases were from this outbreak. It's not like half of them happened a hundred years ago so the "all of history" claim is implicitly disingenuous. This outbreak was severe enough as to cause significant economic impact to the region.

Additionally, you can see from the graph here based on the wikipedia page numbers at the time that there was an early point where the rate of infection was growing exponentially: http://www.geert.io/exponential-growth-of-ebola.html. It's exactly because people sounded alarm bells and started working hard to contain the outbreak that the disease didn't spread further.

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[–] CommonSense ago 

I'm not saying it's not tragic. I'm saying that, in 2014, we were having a picture painted about ebola that made it sound like the whole world was at risk. even the countries that were most effected only lost a few thousand people. that's not an epidemic. shit, that's not even influenza.

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[–] Diavolo1988 1 point -1 points (+0|-1) ago 

that was just fear mongering. the media loves fear mongering, since you know, it sells.