It was only a matter of time. That seems to be the general consensus among healthcare workers and the public after the news emerged that a man in Texas is being treated for Ebola. His case reportedly represents the first case ever of the disease diagnosed in the United States. Among all the questions that arise from this confirmed diagnosis, one is perhaps most important: Should we be afraid?
Balancing fear and circumspection
Taken at face value, the case of this man leaves a lot to be afraid of. Here are some details that would, without further analysis, cause one to be scared:
- The man boarded a plane from Liberia to Texas and arrived in the U.S. on Sep. 20, according to USA Today. By the 26th he was sick enough to seek care at a hospital.
- Despite demonstrating symptoms of a then-unspecified illness, the hospital turned him away. It would be a full two days before he was re-admitted to the hospital, where he is now in serious condition.
- During his time outside the hospital, the man may have exposed the virus to five school-aged children, according to Texas Gov. Rick Perry.
- Those children proceeded to go to school. Between the five of them, they attend four different schools.
Looking at just those facts, it’s quick to have nightmares about a disease map emerging: Patient Zero flies in, infects kids, kids go to different schools, and from there – chaos. But that’s not what’s going to happen. Despite the virulent presence of fear-mongering surrounding the Ebola outbreak in Africa, there are some key elements of the disease that are often overlooked. Here are some of the mitigating factors that reveal how the presence of the disease in the U.S. is not cause for major alarm:
- Ebola is not airborne. This can’t be stressed enough. The disease spreads via direct contact with bodily fluids of someone who’s infected. It makes sense that people assume Ebola spreads like your average stomach bug or flu, but that’s just not the case.
- It is only transmissible when a patient displays symptoms. During the incubation period of the virus, it’s not transmissible. That means that nobody who was on the plane with the man has to worry, since he wasn’t symptomatic at the time (and also, again, the disease spreads through direct fluid contact).
- The reason it poses such a threat in Africa has to do with healthcare preparedness. Fear-mongers are clinging to the CDC’s projection that Ebola, which has so far struck around 3,300 people in Africa, could hit up to 1.4 million people in West Africa by January 2015 if the illness remains uncontained. But while that prospect is devastating for Africa, it doesn’t foretell a similar impact worldwide. After all, the primary reason why Ebola is having such a devastating impact in West Africa is because the healthcare system there isn’t equipped to deal with the disease or implement the proper precautions it requires. As USA Today reports, the healthcare infrastructure in affected areas like Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea was not prepared for the onslaught of Ebola. There are reports of hospitals in these areas lacking basic things like soap and running water. Hospitals in the U.S. have no such impediments to administering effective care.
As always, it’s the most ill-informed people whose voices are the loudest. Thus, stories about Ebola in the U.S. have been flooded with faceless commenters questioning why there aren’t flight bans from Africa and guessing that the man managed to infect people on his plane ride back from Liberia. Comments like these are the product of ignorance, and they perhaps pose a greater threat than the disease itself.
