Option 2. While Option 4 is quite bad, I don't see where a continuing outbreak would be able to occur in the US as we're not culturally wedded to burial practices that have contributed to the long-lasting nature of the West African outbreak.
That seems like a convenient scapegoat. While burial practices have certainly contributed to the spread of the disease, in late June/early June, it was reported that the World Health Organization identified three main causes of the epidemic. Cultural practices was one, but the other two were dense populations and cross-border trade. The US certainly has dense populations and a lot of cross-border movement.
Furthermore, some of the behavioral problems seen in West Africa today are not cultural but rational.
(a) people are afraid to seek out health from health workers. This is rational because health workers cannot cure or even substantially ameliorate the disease; going to a treatment center only increases the chances that you will be infected, whereas a person merely showing symptoms might not be infected at all. There is nothing culturally specific about this problem. This is the main behavioral problem, because the primary means of fighting ebola today is isolation and containment. Yet when people do not seek out health workers, they cannot be isolated and potential transmission chains cannot be tracked down.
(b) health workers themselves refusing to treat the sick. This is rational because of the high level of contagiousness of the disease. There are not enough biohazard level 4 labs around the world to send all the sick to these places.
Poll
