"... mobilization of governments, nongovernmental agencies, and private industry has helped to contain Ebola ..." This official party line is mostly white-wash. Were it not for e.g. underfinanced organizations like Doctors without Borders who act always at first call and risk their lives in the process, nothing would have happened for weeks. Just prior to the Ebola crisis striking, the WHO's branch of experts for hemorraghic fevers had been almost dismantled to "cut costs" and since all prior Ebola outbreaks were largely happening in some African "backwater" nothing had really been done to prepare the world for such an onslaught. While it is true that "little" has happened in the "West" so far I vividly remember how air travel and business was brought to a near stand-still in a Fortune 100 company I consulted for during the SARS epidemic. Having "hot-desking" environments in their huge offices (no cubicles), everyone was told to stay home if they had the slightest reason to feel "sick", have a "fever" etc. I'm sure, some more felt "sick" than actually were ... With Ebola though, only a few hundred cases would bring the European health care systems to the brink of collapse as this is about the maximum that we could quarantine, no matter what politicians say.