Experts Offer Steps for Avoiding Public Hysteria, a Different Contagious Threat
By BENEDICT CAREYOCT. 15, 2014As health officials scramble to explain how two nurses in Dallas became infected with Ebola, psychologists are increasingly concerned about another kind of contagion, whose symptoms range from heightened anxiety to avoidance of public places to full-blown hysteria.
So far, emergency rooms have not been overwhelmed with people afraid that they have caught the Ebola virus, and no one is hiding in the basement and hoarding food. But there is little doubt that the events of the past week have left the public increasingly worried, particularly the admission by Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that the initial response to the first Ebola case diagnosed in the United States was inadequate.
On Wednesday, the C.D.C. offered up the latest piece of bad news, announcing that a second infected nurse in Dallas had flown back from Cleveland a day before developing symptoms. Even before the announcement, two-thirds of the respondents to a Washington Post-ABC News poll said they were concerned about a widespread epidemic of Ebola in this country.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/16/health/ebolas-other-contagious-threat-hysteria.html?_r=0
Kind of interesting to see Fox news as the voice of reason throughut this.
I figure, if Ebola were very contagious, there would be a lot more deaths much sooner in Africa than there have been.
That’s not to advocate carelessness, panic at this point is a little out of order.
Tell the news media to stop hyping the story and beating it to death, then just possibly things will not get out of hand.
The news media hypes this story and ignores the facts that the group ISIS is trying to destroy the civilized world.
There have already been about 5,000 recorded deaths in Africa. Either you’re not following the news or you have a very different concept of “a lot more” than me.
Fox News usually IS the voice of reason.
They expect 10,000 a week. Britan has closed its airports to West Africa.
Spreading multiplies..