Troops in West Africa

Letter writer Renee Arazie questions why the president is sending 3,000 U.S. troops to fight the Ebola outbreak. The answer is in the projections from the Sept. 23 CDC report, Estimating the Future Number of Cases in the Ebola Epidemic — Liberia and Sierra Leone, 2014–2015.

If intense intervention efforts had started on that date, the number of daily cases would have peaked in December and the outbreak would have run its course by the end of January. However, if these efforts of isolation and confinement of 70 percent of patients are delayed only two months, the results are catastrophic.

With the long incubation of up to 21 days, some of those infected would have gotten onto airplanes to all different parts of the world. And we would be facing a true global pandemic.

So, while combating ISIS is certainly a worthy endeavor, I think those troops are being sent exactly where they are most needed.

This story was originally published October 5, 2014 at 3:00 PM with the headline "Troops in West Africa."