Both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization say Ebola’s incubation period is two to 21 days. But is this long enough?

Participating in the discussion via the news blog FiveThirtyEight, EPI faculty member Andreas Handel commented on a recent study from Drexel University reporting that as many as one in eight people who get Ebola don’t get sick until after 21 days.

Excerpt from the article:

Andreas Handel, an assistant professor in epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Georgia’s College of Public Health, said he thinks the balancing point is in the right spot now. “I think we currently don’t know if 21 days is the optimal observation time, but unless we can somehow quantify our need to minimize risks for society versus our willingness to restrict individual’s freedoms (and to pay for the monitoring), it’s hard to come up with any better suggestion,” he said in an email.

Read the entire article at FiveThirtyEight.

Posted October 24, 2014.