I thought this Washington Post piece was particularly interesting. It's main aim is to calm people's fear about Ebola and I think it does a good job at it.

Quote:
Sunday marks 21 days since Thomas Eric Duncan, who contracted Ebola in Liberia and then flew to the United States, was admitted to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas. Officials have been monitoring 48 people potentially exposed to Duncan prior to his hospitalization, his fiancee among them. The incubation period of Ebola, from infection to symptoms, is generally considered to be between two and 21 days. So far, none of these people has shown signs of Ebola disease.

So, it seems we're just about out of the woods regarding secondary infection from patient zero--Thomas Eric Duncan. No one exposed to Duncan prior to hospital admission has come down with Ebola. Another circle of people exposed to nurses Pham and Vinson may be at risk, but the risk seems very low.

Once we reach three weeks from Pham and Vinson being diagnosed and if there are no more cases connected to them, then that would reinforce the idea that the primary risk is from exposure to seriously ill people, people who are too sick to be out and about in public anyway. Duncan was pretty sick at home--already starting to vomit--yet none of those people have come down with Ebola.

Anyway, it is a particularly far ranging article and touches on a lot of different issues regarding the disease, which made it interesting to me. For example, it actually mentions that fever may not be present in some cases or may appear late. That's interesting in the academic sense, but I haven't seen any evidence that it has made any difference in the real world so far.