Wave 3 Watch: Fear and Loathing in Ebola

For our new class project we've been watching the news and recording what each story was about. We've also been tasked with continuing our blog projects, and were encouraged to give responses to the stories we're recording. Today, listening to David Bowie, I found only one story on Wave 3 particularly interesting, that being the new hit fear of Ebola, so I'll just talk about the story, as well as the whole Ebola panic.

 After the second Dallas nurse to contract Ebola flew on a plane, three more patients who were in close contact with her were put in quarantine. As I do not have the full details on the situation, I will not make great judgement on the medical caring of the situation, besides what most people have already said. I will assert, however, that many people, like with ISIS, have been overreacting to the threat of Ebola. Of course, much ISIS, it does pose a threat, but it poses a greater threat outside of America, and has for quite a while.

People have been treating Ebola like the new black plague, mostly because it's come to western society, and now everyone believes it will kill us all. Ebola is very hard to spread, it is not airborne, it has an almost nonexistent chance of becoming airborne, and according to Abbey Ohlheiser at the Washington post: it can only spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of someone experiencing symptoms (http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/10/05/nothing-to-fear-but-ebola-itself/).

Again, Ebola is a problem, and we definitely focus on helping people with it in both America and Africa. I just wanted to assure people, specifically people like my sister and classmates, that they have an incredibly low chance of getting anywhere near a person with Ebola, let alone catching it. If we blow this out of proportion we'll forget about things like Ferguson, or Ebola in Western Africa. I commend Wave for treating this fairly proportionately, and being respectful to the victims, it is honorable, and will helpfully prevent people from boarding their homes and stocking rations.