Mumbai, next? Would anybody even know until way too late?

How to talk nice about draconian measures.

Risk communication

Peter Sandman, a longtime expert and consultant on risk communication based in Brooklyn, New York, wasn't especially shocked when he first heard about the patient's case. 

"My first reaction was: Well, it had to be somewhere. Better Dallas than Mumbai,” he says. 

But Sandman says the past week has been a missed opportunity. 

The Dallas case could have been used to explain to Americans what makes Ebola a global threat, he says. 

“ ‘This was a spark to a place that knows how to extinguish sparks. What is terrifying us is that there are going to be sparks to places that don’t know how to extinguish them.’ That should have been the main message,” Sandman says.

Ebola is unlikely to sweep the globe from Paris or Madrid.

But Mumbai?

By the way, note how the article attempts to fix the label "far right" on several related ideas ranging from stopping travel to America from West Africa to putting a wall around three small West African countries.

But what are the countries apt to be most devastated by a sick traveler thinking, saying, or doing?

What is India doing about travelers going to Mumbai from West Africa?

And, anyway, this is surely a matter of global concern.

Why are American media writing about the thing as though the question how the world will deal with this is entirely up to American elites?

Anyway, our authors promptly talk out of the other side of their mouths.

Teach the world how exponential growth works. 

Explain that the CDC’s worst-case estimate of 1.4 million Ebola cases by mid-January is essentially the same estimate as 700,000 in late December and 2.8 million in early February. 

Reducing the doubling time of Ebola requires reducing the number of contacts sick people have a chance to infect. 

Isolation is—tragically—a much higher priority than treatment. 

This isn’t a humanitarian crisis. 

It is a global health crisis. 

And it is a global security crisis. 

Armies may be a more important part of the solution than healthcare workers.

And if not building walls around countries, what do you suppose those armies are going to end up doing?

And they say this.

Teach the world why “spark suppression”—reducing the number of Ebola sparks emanating from West Africa—is essential to buy time for the desperate attempt to find a vaccine. 

Don’t settle for the false dichotomy: Border closings never work (that is, they never work perfectly) so there’s no point in inhibiting travel. 

Foster a thoughtful debate about various proposals for reducing the number of sparks, and thus reducing not just the burden of extinguishing those sparks but also the chances of Ebola establishing itself in additional countries. 

Help assess which proposals will probably backfire, which will do little good at great humanitarian cost, and which will do comparatively more good at comparatively lower cost.

By the way, I have seen reports that the kill ratio in some areas has reached 70%.