The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings
Going 'meta' for a moment, this is a tragedy of huge proportions, the question I have been considering is whether or not it is even possible to avoid?Updates from MSF which highlight the level of mistrust and superstition amongst the infected population, where people hide their sick relatives from isolation wards and take them back to their village. We cannot exactly put a giant fence around the place (and not that this would be a reasonable goal anyway).Do we invade these countries and force our will on them in order to prevent a humanitarian tragedy? What gives us that right? What gives anyone that right? To someone who is not sick, forcing them from their village, for forcing them to stay in their village violates their basic human rights, and yet it is for their own good, but if they don't believe that, what moral authority allows us to overrule that belief?As you can see I struggle with the challenge of imposing a solution on these people, knowing that without aggressive actions tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of them will die. While explaining to someone who doesn't understand the virus, or the danger, who undergoes forced relocation to a quarantine camp and is never sick during the outbreak, that they were in very real danger from this thing they do not believe in.