How bad is it really, how bad could it get – and how much should you worry?
Tom Phillips/BuzzFeed / Via who.int
How bad could it get?
The simple answer is: nobody knows. The more complicated answer is: lots of experts have made projections of how widely the epidemic could spread, but the number of uncertain factors involved (such as how well the medical infrastructure holds up, how many beds are available, how quickly new cases are reported and isolated, and how safely bodies are disposed of) mean that the range between the best and worst-case scenarios is vast.
Two sets of projections were made in late September. The World Health Organization, in the same New England Journal of Medicine paper, projected that if the rate of increase didn't change, there could be 20,000 cases by early November. That may or may not be accurate: it's more than the current reported number of cases, but could accurately reflect the situation if (as WHO suspects) the reporting infrastructure has collapsed in several of the worst affected countries.
At around the same time, the Centres for Disease Control made a longer-term series of projections for the countries of Liberia and Sierra Leone, up until January 20, 2015. These took into account how successful the efforts to contain the disease would be. If they were largely successful, they predicted that the epidemic would be virtually over by that date. If the efforts were entirely unsuccessful or non-existent, then there could be as many as 1.4 million cases by then.
The point of these is not to say that one or the other may be right – they're not predictions as such, just models to guide policy-makers towards the best decisions. Rather, they serve to point out the incredible amounts of uncertainty when dealing with rapid outbreaks infectious diseases.
Tom Phillips/BuzzFeed / Via nejm.org and cdc.gov
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