My toy model of Ebola mortality where the doubling occurs every 20 days with an arbitrary start date of January 11th 2014 predicted 4,096 deaths for the 9th of October 2014, and the official WHO statistic was 4,033 for the 10th of October 2014. Assuming the same rate of doubling, the toy model predicted 8,192 deaths for the 29th of October 2014. The official figure hovered around 5,000 deaths for the 1st of November 2014. Thus, the toy model is dead. If the official figures are accurate then the doubling factor in days has increased to around 40 days, that is, about 100 deaths per day. While sad in an absolute sense, this figure is very good news globally because it shows that there is a decay in contagion.
The first chart above shows some correlation to the news effect of Ebola on VIX (a volatility or "fear" indicator).
The second chart shows history of potential pandemics from the 1950s.
So far humanity appears to be missing the bullet and technological and policy responses, no matter how awkward at first, appear to be protective enough for the species.
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