Why Is Ebola So Terrifying?

Yesterday Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian man and the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, died at a Texas hospital. As fear ramps up around the Ebola virus and fever screenings are put in place at selected airports across the country, the public’s fear seems to be growing out of proportion to their real risk.

Why are people so scared?

Death from any disease is frightening, but some deaths are worse than others. The gory characteristics of Ebola infection are scary — including not only fever but vomiting, diarrhea and bleeding. Combine that with a high fatality rate and no cure or vaccine —  it’s a truly terrifying disease.

The Psychology of the Panic

The invisibility of the threat is psychologically frightening and unsettling. Most of the threats we might face in our everyday lives are clear and recognizable: a car careening towards us on a freeway, a charging dog or an angry person with a gun on the street. We instantly recognize what the threat is, and have some idea of how we might avoid or minimize it.

But the Ebola virus is invisible to the naked eye. It can’t be seen, smelled, tasted, heard or detected by the average person. We don’t know who might have it, or even if we have it (since the initial symptoms mimic the flu) unless confirmed by a doctor. It’s an invisible, silent killer, and the threat could come from anywhere.

Though you may not know anyone who has been to West Africa in the past month, you probably know someone who knows someone who has. Because of the widespread uncertainty, misinformation and false rumors about Ebola, people are confused and frightened.

There is also of course a strong fear of the unknown, and the tendency to overestimate its risks. Most Americans today have lost their fear of serious infectious diseases such as polio, mumps, measles, smallpox, tuberculosis and influenza.

Smallpox killed over a half billion people between 1880 and 1980, the year it was finally eradicated, and it’s rarely discussed today. Even diseases that ravaged the world in the Middle Ages are still with us, though rarely mentioned. The bubonic plague, for example, which once killed about a third of Europe, is still reported in a few places including New Mexico, which saw three cases in 2013.

To put the threat in perspective, on average the flu kills between 4,000 and 50,000 people in the United States alone, depending on the season. So far only one person has died from Ebola, and he contracted it in Liberia. People underestimate the risks of flu because it’s a common and well-known disease. People overestimate the risks of Ebola because it’s an uncommon and poorly-understood disease.

Social and Cultural Fears

There is a social element as well, an underlying element of xenophobia in many of the fears. Fears often reflect both personal and social anxieties. Ebola began in Africa and many people feel it should stay there. For decades the fact that it remained on foreign shores was a psychological comfort. Now the disease has arrived on our continent from Africa.

In their book “The Global Grapevine: Why Rumors of Terrorism, Immigration and Trade Matter,” folklorists Gary Alan Fine and Bill Ellis note that Americans have often associated disease with foreigners:

“Migrants to the United States have (long) been described as a virus that sapped a nation’s strength.   Concern was perhaps more symbolically expressed than practically resolved when, in the past, immigrants were given medical exams or quarantined in isolated, ‘sterile’ places like Ellis Island, not yet ready to be incorporated within the nation. Today, these procedures are no longer employed, but we brood about the unchecked transmission of swine flu, bird flu, AIDS or even the Ebola virus by means of foreigners entering our country. With increased international air travel, such transmission is all too plausible.”

The entertainment media also may contribute to the public’s concerns. In a bit of unfortunate timing, the film “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” — which opened as the most recent Ebola outbreak began and is still screening today — provides a terrifying depiction of a deadly virus spread across the globe by infected travelers. Though the film is clearly fictional, it’s another reminder that deadly viruses may only be an airplane ride away.

Another part of the reason for the public’s fear is a concern, not entirely unfounded, that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are not fully prepared to deal with this epidemic. While CDC officials appear in the news media daily reassuring the public that they have everything under control, it’s clear that serious missteps occurred in how Duncan’s case was handled.

As CNN reported, “‘A travel history was taken, but it wasn’t communicated to the people who were making the decision. It was a mistake. They dropped the ball,’ said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.”

Many Americans don’t fully trust the government to keep them safe, and that sentiment is not surprising. After all, federal regulators spectacularly failed to prevent the Wall Street collapse, costing many Americans their life savings and plunging the economy into a recession; the government’s reactions to devastating natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005 were widely seen as inadequate; and so on.

Given the government’s high-profile failures to help and protect its citizens, it’s not surprising that many Americans are skeptical regarding a newly-arrived, deadly, contagious disease.

Read more at Discovery News