Americans Are Freaking Out About Ebola, and the Media Is Helping Them - Vanity Fair

[Fred Sanders]

As I and a few others have been saying:


http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2014/10/american-ebola-media-freakout

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It’s Friday morning in America, and the home pages of nearly every Web site are blaring Ebola headlines.

A glance at the top stories on the sites of CBS News, NBC News, ABC News, the Huffington Post, Drudge Report, and Fox News confirms that news organizations believe you should be reading about the hemorrhagic fever. Put another, perhaps more accurate, way: they believe you will read about it.

Here are the few details that most of them are sharing: the C.D.C. and other health organizations are monitoring approximately 100 Dallas-area people who may have come into contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, the man who was exposed to Ebola in West Africa and developed symptoms after arriving in the United States. That 100 or so individuals are being monitored is not shocking or cause for mass hysteria—the C.D.C. warned that it would be extra cautious in its efforts to contain the fever.

Dr. Thomas Frieden, the director of the C.D.C., said he believes that only a “handful” of those being monitored may have actually been exposed and that while it would also not be shocking if some more cases were confirmed, “we remain hopeful that we can contain any spread of Ebola within the U.S.”

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"And the media isn’t the only party responsible for fearmongering (Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and other G.O.P. politicians have also taken up the cause). But it’s important to remember that the conditions are quite different in the United States. Public-health officials continue to remind Americans that those who have not come into close contact with Duncan—and only when he was symptomatic (meaning, not when he was on the plane)—do not need to worry, no matter how many scary headlines you may see."

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Prove you deserve to live in the land of the brave, because actions speak louder than slogans.

And I see John Stewart agrees with us of the non freak out crowd, he has opened his last two episodes begging Americans to drop their Depends and put their man pants on.

[NYC_SKP]

1. "Huffington Post, Drudge Report, and Fox News" all the same sort of shite, IMHO.

I cringe when I see them used as sources here.

[tularetom]

2. The media are doing a lot more than helping

They are directly fomenting fear among the people. The press is the reason people are acting like scared ninnies.

[Fred Sanders]

6. Thank you. I am happy at the response to reason over panic. When I saw Nigeria and Senegal

contain their outbreaks that is most what I needed to know.

[kestrel91316]

3. Kia Makarechi needs to stop pontificating about epidemiological matters.

He's supremely unqualified to write about the subject.

"Kia Makarechi is VanityFair.com's news editor, covering politics, business, technology and culture."

http://www.vanityfair.com/vf-hollywood/contributor/Kia-Makarechi

[Cali_Democrat]

4. Home of the brave? You kidding? Everyone seems to be SCARED SHITLESS

[Fred Sanders]

5. The panic button is always handy at the desk of every TV and media executive....fear sells only

second to sex.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

7. You know who's not freaking out?

Pretty much any medical personnel anywhere in the country, barring Fox News doctors.

Ebola is to be respected, but it can be dealt with without freaking out.

[Barack_America]

8. Tell that to our resident veterinarian and dentist.

They're leading the charge of the hysterical and, sadly, trying to throw the weight of their "medical experience" behind it.

[Fred Sanders]

9. Vets and dents took few epidemiology courses at vet or dental school, I would wager.

[riverwalker]

10. not freaking out just angry

Total FBAR that should not have happened. The epidemic started in March, we knew it was only a matter of time. Yet hospitals did not instruct or train staff (to save money) CDC, the NIH, all these bureaucrats saying "we can handle this" but did not mandate policies or practice drills. Staff learning about Ebola from Twitter for crissakes. The EPIC Software system has been flawed for years, but no one listened to nurses complaints, now they blame it for the "miscommunication" of his travel history. Just a mess.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

11. EPIC is kind of annoying in quite a few ways.

How exactly were they blaming it here? Was the travel noted simply in the nurses' notes section, which was then not accessed by the doc?