In honor of Hutch:
Don't Worry, Be Happy...bobby mcferrin
never said that... but freaking out ain't gonna help...
we saw it over SARS too...
have some courage for god's sake.. between the panic over ISIS and this the American people are not looking good...
btw did nobody realize Ebola was killing tens of thousands in Africa for these past few months?
rather unseemly to suddenly freak out over THREE Americans...
Risk is not simply a product of the probability of an event occurring. The degree of severity of the outcome is also a factor. An Ebola epidemic in the U.S. is a very remote possibility. But the death rate is somewhere in the 50-90% range and it's a really pleasant death - coughing and vomiting blood, diarrhea, systemic pain, external bleeding from every orifice as the body can't clot, etc... The lucky survivors get to live with joint and muscle pain. Better to overreact early than late, as they did in west Africa.
If you think your detested Americans are acting "unseemly," look at Europe. Sealing off entire buildings because a couple of "sick-looking Africans" were spotted or refusing enrollment at schools for kids who are from the affected countries.
And you may want to entertain the possibility that SARS was a bust precisely because everyone freaked out, restricted travel, wore masks, etc...
