Ebola and Moral Panic

While being informed (from reliable sources - not hearsay) and aware of potential dangers, sensationalized panic is never helpful. It creates a nasty reinforcing feedback loop to distruction - fear lead to panic, panic creates fear, etc.

There are no solutions in panic or fear.

www.commondreams.org...

Refering to a book titled "Folk Devils and Moral Panic" by Stanley Cohen...

The elements of moral panic are well reflected in the current Ebola scare:

The fear is far disproportionate to the actual threat. Ebola is not as contagious as influenza (which still kills thousands of people every flu season) or other viral infections.

There are strident objections to the anticipated invasion of the folk devils (all those virus-ridden Africans are going to come here).

The debate contains a subtext of righteous indignation over the wider issue of immigration (letting “all these foreigners” into the country).

Shrill recommendations are made for how to stop the deadly folk devils: Says Jessica M. Vaughn of the Center for Immigration Studies, “Our government must simply deny admission to any non-U.S. citizen who has been in the afflicted countries in the recent past, until the crisis is over.”

a reply to: FyreByrd

The conclusion from the above referenced article:

Solutions lie in much better screening and training at departure and entry points, as well as increased awareness among medical providers in the United States. Like it or not, Ebola is going to be around for a while. We must deal with it in effective and smart ways—which means we refocus, calm down, use some common sense, and discard the moral panic.

I have yet to see anything that closely resembles panic.

Calm down! Don't Panic!!!

Somebody do SOMETHING!

EVERYBODY ELSE IS WRONG!

Yup.

a reply to: FyreByrd

Yes, you are so right. When the next Thomas Duncan gets off a plane having lied to everyone and then gets sick and happens to do so where you come into contact with him ... just remember, Ebola will always be around, and it was just your poor luck.

After all, why should we contain deadly diseases when they break out? It's unfair that some places have them and others do not. We should all be equally miserable and suffer equally from this outbreak.

Yeah but this is weaponized! For god sakes man screw on your tin foil hat on properly! This is ATS, the mother of all conspiracy sites! PEACE.

I'm not prepping out of fear of Ebola, I'm prepping out of fear of panic and fear. The odds of my coming in contact with anyone is slim (at this stage), although I do work at a large private university with a goodly number of international students.

But I feel strongly that if one is prepared - temporally (food & water supply, meds, fuel, hygiene) and intellectually (research, research, research and education, life skills) the less likely one is to panic...even if things get dicey (which I honestly feel they will eventually).

Im not great at math. And I hope my calculations are all wrong, so please someone crunch these numbers too.

I was curious as to how many Americans get the flu every year, so I decided to google it.

Its between 5% and 10% of the total population. The 2013 population stats place America as having 316,000,000 total population. 5% would be 1,580,000.

Out of the 1,580,000 or 5% who get the flu every year, an average of 36,000 die from it every year. Which is less than 2 and 1/2%.

So, if even 5% of the total population gets Ebola, and the death rate is 40% (which is conservative) that would mean at least 632,000 people will die, compared to 36,000 from the annual flu.

Aids kills on average less than 16,000 Americans per year.

So, yes, I feel a little panic and fearful. But, I think fear can be used as a tool. I am preparing to the best of my ability to bug-in. Its not that I fear death, but I really dont want anyone to suffer from such a cruel death.

That would actually be the lowest stats, Using the high stats:

If 10% of the population gets Ebola that would be 31,600,000 Million Americans infected. If Ebola has a 70% death rate then the number will go to 22,120,000 Million people who die from Ebola in the US.

I sure hope my figures are off.

originally posted by: FyreByrd
a reply to: FyreByrd

The conclusion from the above referenced article:

Solutions lie in much better screening and training at departure and entry points, as well as increased awareness among medical providers in the United States. Like it or not, Ebola is going to be around for a while. We must deal with it in effective and smart ways—which means we refocus, calm down, use some common sense, and discard the moral panic.

Then wouldnt the common sense be to just SHUT DOWN flights out of Africa period, rather then screening? You wana go INTO Africa, fine, but you dont come back out until things are under control....

That seems more simplistic and effective then trying to screen so many people with such a high margin of error especially if they arent symptomatic yet......

His conclusion is wrong and makes no damn sense.......

Honestly, because this disease is zoonotic, what worries me most about it is that it gets here and sets up camp in a local animal population so that it can then just randomly pop up here from time to time out of the blue.

We know that dogs can get it and be asymptomatic. We know that it hangs out in monkeys, primates, bats, and that pigs get it too.

It disturbed me to see so many people defend that dog in Spain. I don't think they fully understand the reality of what was being risked there. It was very sad to think they put it to sleep, but the alternative was to quarantine it in full level-4 containment for 21 days in a situation where it could suddenly have an active infection at any time and no one would know except for a blood test. Someone would have to move it from kennel to kennel and fully clean and decontaminate it's kennel for all of that time, risking contact with urine, feces, saliva, all of which can be infectious.

Oh, to say nothing of having to restrain the animal to take blood samples. What if it bit someone during that process?

Honestly, what did people think was the safest thing to do?

a reply to: ManBehindTheMask

Heck, if it turns out this guy from Britain had it and got sick in Britain ... I'm not sure I want flights from England, either. Not until they get that outbreak under full control.

a reply to: FyreByrd

I wish I had more stars to give. You're doing virtuous work here, a true physician!

a reply to: Nechash

There is nothing immoral about not wanting a disease with a 50+% mortality rate to be brought into your backyard. If it can be contained to wherever it is now, then that's what you do rather than letting it spread.

That's not an immoral impulse. It's common sense.

If it takes root in Dallas, I don't want people from Texas traveling out of state, either.

What part of - When you are sick with an infectious disease that has as high a mortality as Ebola, you don't travel and take it to healthy populations don't you get?

a reply to: ketsuko

Strawman? Where's Dorothy.

I think we need to get over the arrogance of believing we can control this. Nature finds a way. And humans are notorious for taking shortcuts thinking they are invulnerable. 'I never thought it could happen to me"... and so on. This is a virus with no personal opinions or social objectives. It does one thing and it does it very well. We have to respect it because it surely wont respect us.

I have to agree with you OP.
The media are making out that this thing is spreading at a faster and wider rate than it actually is and the public are highly overreacting in my opinion.

What utter nonsense this article is! Comparing sensible precautions against a deadly pathogen with the Salem witch trials? Seriously? More magical thinking....something that appears to be growing and is going to doom a helluva lot of people if they don't wake up from their drug-induced stupors.
I don't see any panic myself. Could you please provide reports on where people are exhibiting panic behaviors such as emptying supermarkets and drug store shelves? Oh, that's right, it's "moral panic" and that is characterized by what? That someone disagrees with the official government actions....
I see people calling for common sense, pre-planned, proven methods of stopping the pathogen before it becomes wide-spread in the US. Disease-ridden people have ALWAYS been turned away at our borders. There are good reasons for those policies and I'll be hung if I can figure out why this administration has suddenly decided it is racist to protect the US population from deadly pathogens.
Oh yeah, it's "moral panic"---a term I can honestly say I'd never heard before this thread. So the thread has at least educated me to some degree.
Perhaps the author of the article has investments that include the companies that make ebola tests or corporations that make sterile gloves or disinfectants? His dropping that "entrepreneurs of moral panic" made me pause---oh, I see, that's a Progressive catch phrase---nevermind...I'm not always up on this Newspeak of twits and tweets.
If seems to me that if someone in this administration decided that bringing in planeloads of deadly vipers and letting them loose in airports was somehow the politically and racially correct action, they'd be paying people to round up the deadliest snakes on earth and bring them here.

originally posted by: Nechash
a reply to: ketsuko

Strawman? Where's Dorothy.

It's not a strawman. For all we know, this situation could exist. We are still within the incubation period for the contacts from the original patient in Dallas.

We also don't know if the Briton dies of Ebola, and if he did, we don't know how he may have gotten it.

I have to wonder how you would behave if you had this disease? Would you go to your family demanding they take care of you even knowing that you are probably going to infect them, or would you stay away from them to spare them? If you went to them and demanded they care for you and they turned you away, would you accuse them of "moral panic"?

a reply to: ketsuko

Unfortunately, sometimes someone carries a burden that is too great for them to manage successfully on their own, and I'd like to live in a world where they weren't tormented and isolated on top of being sick. I think by bringing them into a treatment center and tackling this thing head on, everyone has the greatest likelihood of longterm well-being. I'd like to think the CDC would have means to treat this illness without requiring someone to go crawl up under a rock and die alone of exposure, but I guess if that is the remaining option left to the infected one, then they must do what is best for everyone.