The Ebola Scare

There has been a lot of talk in the news including talk radio, newspaper outlets, TV news, as well as internet sources about the Ebola virus, thanks to a few American volunteers who ended up contracting the virus while serving in infected countries in West Africa. Most of the news so far would have you believe that the Ebola virus is coming here next and the end of our world soon after.

This last Tuesday morning my eyes were opened to a new perspective on the Ebola outbreak in Africa when I met with a group of health experts at the Southwest Utah Public Health Department during their monthly Health Department Surveillance Round-up. Louise Saw, an epidemiologist for the Utah Public Health Department gave an eye opening presentation, where she explained clearly the reasons why there was such a large outbreak in Africa and why there would not be one here in the US.

Dr. David Blodgett, the SW Utah Public Health Department Health Officer, added that the virus would not have any chance of really penetrating the US and especially coming to Utah, despite the scare tactics of the media as well as governmental agencies, because of our current health practices here compared to those in Africa.

   

Others health expert in the group shared that they had received a directive from the government about fifty pages explaining the extra precautions that should be taken if a patient with Ebola symptoms came in to their hospital or health department. Those affected by this directive thought that this was excessive and concluded that this document was not necessary as long as people stick with the current Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) standards and practices that are already in place in the health field.  

That same night, we discussed this topic a bit in class and then on the radio on my trip home there was another report further sensationalizing the outbreak and contradicting some of the information that I had heard earlier in the day. 

The very next day, one of the lead stories in the Wall Street Journal had the title, “Ebola virus cases may hit 1.4 million by winter, U.S. warns.”  I felt I had no choice at this point but to engage in the issue and read the article to find out how the media would tell us we would all die.

The leading picture for this article showed four Red Cross workers in “moon suits” hauling a dead body out of a house in Liberia. The need for this extreme amount of PPE Dr. Blogett told was unnecessary and was one of the ways to sensationalize and scare people about the disease. 

The article began with a focus on the need to do something right away about the outbreak before it got really bad. At the end of the piece though, they included a statement from a CDC report that basically said that if 70% of infected people went to a treatment facility or similar community setting where they could not infect others, then the outbreak could be ended by January of next year. That statement drastically contradicts the title of the article.

The numbers of this outbreak are also interesting to analyze in this article. The title reports 1.4 million cases possible by the end of the year. Further into the article, they cite another source which revises the number to 20 thousand by the end of September. Then they give the real number of cases currently which is only just over 5 thousand.

The further fallacy of the media pushing the fear of this disease on to their audiences is also found in the omission of pertinent facts about the disease and how it spreads. A simple search into the Ebola on the web took me to the World Health Organization (WHO) website where there is plenty of key facts about the disease, its background, and transmission as well as how to protect oneself from it.   

Dr. Blodgett also had further explained how this outbreak could have been contained in the early stages if health officials had taken precautions like they had in the past when these types of problems had occurred before. He further shared how this event was an initial breakdown of protocol from a government position and not to just be blamed on the ignorance of the people. As proof of his claim, he cited an instance where a whole villages of people were scared that the government was trying to kill them by their use of hostile tactics to find infected people, so they were hiding their sick from inspectors as they came to take care of them. There were also reports of protesters of the government raiding and looting hospitals and taking off with blood soiled sheets and mattresses.There is more to this issue than just sickened people.

The article further said that something still needed to be done and then by the end of the article stated that the US was sending in 3000 troops and the CDC already had 120 workers there and were beginning to train more to send over.

The media’s premise that we should be afraid of the spread of the Ebola virus to the US may be a believable premise, but it is a fallacious argument because they have not presented all likely relevant information and their reasoning is not valid or correct as I have proved above from the article cited.   

I will continue to watch the developments of this issue with a new perspective on media tactics to try to persuade people into further action that may not be necessary at this time.