His decisiveness gave those of us who worked for him what we needed to mobilize this international support. I invited the other UN ambassadors to the US Mission to hear from Frieden, who once again explained the stakes in his mild-mannered yet terrifying way. He described how Ebola had jumped across national borders, penetrated urban areas, overwhelmed clinics, and caused businesses and schools to close. He detailed how local burial customs had helped it spread. And most unnervingly, he walked the ambassadors through The Slide depicting the path to 1.4 million infections by January of 2015.
