Step 1: Ebola comes to America.
Step 2: The virus spreads.
Step 3: The government decides to quarantine the general public for their safety.
Step 4: Cities go under martial law.
Step 5: People are forced out of their homes into FEMA camps and the extermination begins.
That’s just one example of the kind of hysteria I see nearly every day on my Facebook feed. It certainly sounds like a scary portrait of what could come with the Ebola virus, but how have people gotten this kind of idea in the first place?
The nation has been swept up in a panic over the Ebola virus, a disease spread through bodily fluids that, without proper precautions, can decimate entire populations. It has actually, as can be seen in West Africa, where an estimated 5,000 deaths have occurred, resulting in the World Health Organization declaring it an epidemic. This is a tragedy and these people need our help desperately. However, in the news, this is where the facts mostly end and the hysteria begins.
I don’t doubt that you’ve heard of the broadcasted cases of Ebola here in the U.S., but I hope I’ll be able to quell your fears about the virus spreading.
About a month ago, someone in the U.S. died from Ebola. This is because he was in the U.S. after a visit to Liberia and because of how long he went without treatment. At the same time, three patients had already been released after being treated for the disease.
Those kinds of facts haven’t been given as much airtime. Instead, we’re fed 24/7 updates on the outbreak. In the interest of ratings, news organizations have pandered to this false scare and are spreading fear in the interest of profits rather than objectivity. The same kinds of misconceptions were spread in 2009 about the H1N1 flu pandemic, but that doesn’t seem to be remembered as much nowadays. It’s this environment of sensationalism that’s prompted so much fear mongering in our society. This has been stretched to the extreme, with talking heads such as Alex Jones suggesting that the virus will be ultra deadly and infectious here in the U.S. The important thing to understand is that these are not voices of reason and should be ignored.
Initial cases of Ebola in the first world have time and time again proven to be downright false. Ranging from the Yale student in the U.S. or the four suspects in Spain suspected to be infected, false reports are popping up everywhere. Maybe if the press wasn’t so dead-set on broadcasting the idea of domestic Ebola there wouldn’t be this issue. I would like to point out that if you are in a developed country and haven’t visited contagious areas, you have nothing to fear.
Jeffery Duchin, chairman of the public health committee of the Infectious Diseases Society, told the New York Times, “People get very fearful … about things like Ebola that aren’t a general health risk.” We should not sit around bemoaning the dangers of Ebola and make up tinfoil hat theories that it’s spread through vaccines or something preposterous like that. The general American public and its news organizations need to stop and think rationally, to understand that the current way we think of the Ebola virus is dangerous and insulting to the thousands that have already died due to poor understanding and infrastructure.
So please, think about the real, literal dangers of Ebola. For those of us here in the U.S., the best thing that we can do is stay informed and try to help those countries being ravaged by it. There are more serious dangers to be aware of. For example, don’t become one of nearly 3,000 people to die from a car accident; wear a seatbelt. Don’t let the common cold debilitate you; get vaccinated. Don’t be one of the 88,000 people per year that die from alcohol-related deaths; use common sense. Don’t allow the media to scare you, take what you read and watch with a massive grain of salt.
