Devil’s advocate...
If I’ve got the mumps, I’m infectious for around 25 days...and its not usually deadly, so ,ost people around me won’t be wearing moon suits.
If I’ve got Ebola, as soon as I’m diagnosed, I am quarantined and only people in protective gear will come near me. IOW, my period of being contagious has been interfered with.
So, any conclusions based on looking at this R0 are somewhat flawed. People with Ebola infect fewer people than the mumps...because people are scared to death of getting Ebola.
Yes, and that's due to the other half of this calculation that was omitted from this reassurance: none of these diseases carries with it a 70% mortality rate (with the exception of measles in an unexposed population, which is very high but still not 70%). In short, you're less likely to contract the disease on exposure but more likely to die of it if you do. That's the issue here.
Nailed it. Ebola is extremely virulent and spreads much like a cold or flu. Somebody coughs or sneezes that has Ebola and you can bet there's ebola virus by the tons in that "bodily fluid" being expelled from the mouth.