The current Ebola outbreak is “the most severe, acute health emergency seen in modern times,” Ian Smith, the World Health Organization’s executive director, announced at a mid-October press conference.

Huh? Worse than the “Spanish flu” of 1918-19? Extrapolated to today’s world population, that would mean 60 million to 150 million deaths. Worse than AIDS, with its 35 million deaths?

But the media weren’t asking skeptical questions. The next day, reporting on a separate WHO conference, a New York Times headline blared: “New Ebola Cases May Soon Reach 10,000 a Week, Officials Predict.”