Nothing makes sense when fear takes over. Which explains why 7 in 10 Americans—according to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll---want mandatory quarantines for health workers who’ve treated African Ebola patients, even if they have no symptoms. And why a Pew survey found 41 percent of Americans overall say they are worried about Ebola. Worried about a virus that almost none of us will ever be exposed to, and had hardly thought about a few months ago. It also explains why even I--- a former health reporter well informed about how viruses are transmitted—was uneasy a couple of weeks ago when my airline seat mate started violently coughing. My rational self knew better, but in the moment I gave in to the general unease all around me.
It doesn’t help that there has been confusion about protocol, and safety gear, starting when the first Ebola victim, Thomas Eric Duncan, turned up at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital. And it didn’t inspire confidence when the Centers for Disease Control struggled to establish both uniformity in how it explained the real risk to the public and how it proscribed treatment. Then politics got thrown into the mix ---Ron Klain’s appointment as Ebola czar, midterm candidates claiming Ebola as a campaign issue, plus states declaring quarantine regulations independent of federal regulations. The result is a cold-sweat-queasy- stomach rumbling of mass skepticism and rising panic.
This, even as science confirms, that those at highest risk for the Ebola virus are health care workers and family members interacting with an actively infected person. One African country—Nigeria—has fought the spread of Ebola by employing the very tactics health experts advocate. Nigeria traced the past route of the infected patient, methodically contacted the persons he interacted with, and used the proper protocols for testing, and monitoring. Most importantly, Nigeria’s various health and security agencies joined forces in coordinating the overall effort. Taken together, Nigeria was able to stop the spread of the disease cold.
“Fear,” Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “always springs from ignorance.” So the less we know, the more we are susceptible to the loudest voices in the room many planting seeds of doubt. And the bungles by the CDC have undermined trust in the main agency set up to protect us.
But, we can’t allow fear mongers to push us into wholesale anxiety. The CDC has issued new federal treatment and diagnosis regulations, but CDC Director Dr. Thomas Friedan cautions there is no way to eliminate all possible Ebola risk, again saying, “ We will only get to zero risk by stopping it at its source.”
Here’s the reality --we’re going to be coping with Ebola in America for some time, if only isolated cases. So, I’m going to put aside my occasional qualms and remind myself that most times a cough is just a cough.
