[jjsheridan5]

Oddly, a rate over 90% can stop the spread of a disease if people die quickly and it burns itself out.

Not true at all, yet parroted endlessly. Once you are symptomatic enough to either be self-isolating, immobile, or so symptomatic that any rational person would avoid you, it makes no difference to the virus' long-term "plans" whether you live or die (although through dying, it opens up other vectors, which would help the virus, not hurt it). What matters is the period before that level of symptomatic-ness, to coin a phrase, occurs. That is going to be a function of a number of things, none of which includes whether the host ultimately dies or survives (although there may be an indirect relationship between fatality rate, and those other factors).

[exDemMom]

Not true at all, yet parroted endlessly. Once you are symptomatic enough to either be self-isolating, immobile, or so symptomatic that any rational person would avoid you, it makes no difference to the virus' long-term "plans" whether you live or die (although through dying, it opens up other vectors, which would help the virus, not hurt it).

Ebola is not contagious until it is symptomatic. There have probably been many outbreaks in isolated villages where it killed everyone, but never got out of that village--it burned out. The difference now is that people are more mobile, and the hands-on funeral customs in the affected areas are very conducive to virus spread.