The Ebola alarm in this country has long subsided, but that’s not true in Africa. On Monday, in fact, the World Health Organization (WHO) said the number of people infected in the three hardest-hit countries had surpassed 20,000, while nearly 8,000 have died.
It’s been assumed that Liberia had turned a corner, but The Atlantic’s Adam Chandler notes that “a recent surge of new cases” has tempered that view. Meanwhile, the crisis in Sierra Leone and Guinea remains daunting.
Still, there has been progress. It’s worth recalling that in September, WHO had said the 20,000 figure might be reached by early November, while the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had issued a worst-case projection of 1.4 million cases by Jan. 20 in just Sierra Leone and Guinea alone.
So the international effort to stem the tide has had a major effect. But the crisis won’t be over, as White House Ebola czar Ron Klain warned Sunday, “until we get all the way to zero.”
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