One of the lead stories for the last week or so has been the appearance of Ebola in the United States. While other countries have already instituted travel bans from Ebola stricken countries, our government has determined that travel bans are ineffective. Their strategy is to attack Ebola at its source, hopefully defeating it in Africa, which will theoretically prevent it from spreading worldwide.
The facts as we know them are as follows. Ebola is not airborne, meaning it is not spread by breathing on someone. A victim must be in contact with another person and exchange bodily fluids of some kind. Whether that means a sneeze, I guess we do not yet know. We do know that Ebola survives the victim host. When the victim dies, he or she can still pass the virus on to others handling the body for a day or so afterwards. Ebola's incubation period has recently become longer. The CDC is now quarantining individuals for up to 21 days, although incubation is typically 8 to 10 days. While there is treatment for Ebola, there is no vaccine or cure, and the current treatments are extremely expensive. A few years ago, Ebola typically killed upwards of 90% of its victims. However, as the virus has mutated into something with a much longer incubation period, the fatality rates have fallen to 60%.
You would think from watching the news that the zombie apocalypse is on the horizon. Despite assurances from most health care professionals that this virus is not likely to become airborne, Americans are still almost uniformly worried about Ebola becoming airborne. Despite assurances that Ebola is not likely to spread in a developed nation the way it does in the villages of Africa, Americans are still uniformly worried about it spreading. So why are we so fearful of this current Ebola crisis?
Putting aside the sensationalism spawned but the media, I happen to think that the collective wisdom of the American people is something to be taken seriously. "Experts" often seem to think that the only thing Americans are collectively is ignorant, but that has not been borne out by history. The American people are afraid the experts are wrong because experts are, frequently, wrong. It may be unlikely that Ebola will mutate into an airborne virus, but we know from our collective experience as Americans that, if it did, it would decimate our civilization.
We know that our government is incompetent and lies to us, especially in a crisis. Should Ebola reach pandemic levels in the United States, our infrastructure is just as likely to breakdown as the infrastructures of the governments in Africa. We know that our local hospitals would be overwhelmed. We know that school would be cancelled and working would become much more difficult as a result. We know that segments of our economy would be at risk, consumer spending would drop, and all of that would weaken an already weakened economy.
We doubt that, if there were a significant risk of pandemic, that our government would actually tell us. We believe that, more likely, the government would attempt to assure us that they have the situation under control, providing us with limited or incorrect information. We know from experience that getting the truth out of our government is so difficult that we routinely take everything our leaders say with a grain of salt - when it's not outright ignored. We are also reasonably certain that if there were a threat, at best, our government would be ineffective and, at worst, it would get in the way of serious people trying to manage the crisis.
A little fear is a healthy thing. It is also good to have a healthy skepticism of the experts telling us that there is nothing to worry about. For now, in spite of the sensationalism, everyone is still going to work and children are still going to school. Wisdom comes from experience, and our experience with such things tells us to be a little worried. Perhaps a little overreaction will prevent our worst fears from coming to fruition.
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