Why couldn’t they have just seen that this one would be worse than all previous outbreaks combined and taken more drastic measures early on? Why, why why...
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Hindsight is usually 20-20 ..... unfortunately.
Several reasons.
1) Past Ebola outbreaks were in sparsely populated / jungle areas. It was both simpler to quarantine the population (less people, less ongoing contact with the outside world anyway), and fewer people were involved.
2) Also coming into play are the cultural norms of preparing the dead for burial (washing the body) which is a *very* efficient means of transferring viable virus, *and* the effects of rumor-mongering (”there is no such thing as Ebola” / “they” are trying to get us all killed / etc. etc.) on a historically undereducated population
3) The multiple consequences of poverty: 1) lack of adequate supplies for doctors for personal protective gear (safety gloves being washed and re-used!) 2) the lack of sophisticated treatments for patients? No, lack of money for things considered rudimentary in the United States, e.g. no 3-day turnaround for blood tests since there *are* no blood tests — the annual per-capita spending on health in Liberia is around $100 for *everything*. 3) the dire economic necessity of keeping whatever economy there *is*, humming: they don’t have the economic safety margin to shut down for 21 days and let things settle
Finally, there is the problem of African *heat* — working 16-hour days in a plastic suit, goggles fog up, you get sweat-logged, etc. — there might be a temptation to get careless; but due to the lack of money anyone not in the hot wards themselves is lucky to have rubber gloves, let alone a full body suit and face shield.