[chefandy]

He said he was wearing N95 masks for a week before the 26th. Wuhan locked down on the 23rd.

Ebola was a large and growing problem in Africa in 2015 which covered a larger swath of the population, had nearly identical messaging from the Government, and would trigger a lockdown in Sierra Leone. Lots of folks regularly travel between the west coast of Africa and major American cities. I'd argue it would not have been prudent to start wearing Ebola PPE at that point, either. Of course, because it was Africa and not China, it only got marginal news coverage compared to the enormity of the problem on the ground, and much less traction on technology platforms because to this day, 25% of Sierra Leone's population has internet access. Epidemiologists were every bit as concerned about Ebola as they were about COVID before COVID's higher initial R0 number was released.

I'd like to hear the justification for not donning Ebola PPE given what was ostensibly a nearly identical situation that fortunately ended up being handled a whole lot better. Or maybe he did and he left that one off?