The current Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa is the largest since the disease was first discovered in 1976. To be sure, Ebola is a scary disease with no known vaccine or antidote and a very high fatality rate.

To put the Ebola epidemic into perspective, there are currently about 900 known cases in the world today. Most of those cases are in West Africa, but recently Thomas Duncan died of Ebola in Dallas. And at least two nurses …