During the initial coverage of the ebola outbreak, there were several comparisons to the malaria death toll, with the conclusion that paying so much attention to the (much, much smaller) death toll from ebola was irrational. This was wrong, because the ebola outbreak was undergoing exponential growth, and so the early death toll had huge importance as evidence about the long-term growth rate, and because arresting the exponential process in the early stages might be very cost effective. At the time, there were credible predictions that we might see 1.5 million cases in a relatively small region (with perhaps .75 million deaths), compared to a rate of 0.5 million global deaths from malaria. Thankfully, these predictions now look unlikely, but it is very much rational to care about possible early evidence for something that might be on track for substantial growth.