Panic

I listen to Meet The Press and This Week via podcast.  That means I usually catch up with a couple of days after its aired.

Recently, it's been all about Ebola. Given that its Ebola coverage wall to wall, pretty much (ISIL manages to edge in too) I was stunned when Chris Todd, the new moderator, allowed that the press had been telling everyone not to panic, but now we have a US death. . .

Really, the press has been telling us not to panic?  I must have missed that due to all the panicking in the press.

In the real world, the chances of Ebola becoming a major non African disease, or even a pan African disease, are non existent.  It will not happen.  It has killed 4,000 people so far, mostly in Liberia, where conditions are ideal for it (although one sizable Liberian Goodyear company town manged to halt it there).  That's 4,000 out of a population of about 4,000,000.  In contrast, in 2011 the flu killed 53,826 ,granted out of a population of about 350,000,000.  Still that rates comparable.  Why aren't we panicking about the flu?

We do, of course, from time to time, but only when it looks like a flu like the 1918 Spanish Flu might be lurking about. But the regular old flu is quite the killer, and to Americans, a bigger danger than Ebola.

Postscript

To my huge surprise, the topic of Ebola has now entered this year's Wyoming's gubernatorial race. 

Back during the primary we saw three Republicans running, those being the sitting Governor; Matt Mead, the current controversial Superintendent of Education; Cindy Hill, and  Tea Party sometimes third party candidate Dr. Taylor Haynes.  Both Hill and Haynes were in the Tea Party camp, with Haynes expressing some radical ideas on public lands ownership.  Those ideas enjoyed some popularity amongst Tea Party elements in the GOP, but overall those views must have had little popularity with Wyoming Republicans as both Hill and Haynes did poorly in the primary.

During the election the Republicans agreed amongst themselves to support whoever won, but that quickly broke down with Hill, who flat out refused to support Mead.  Locally, one Tea Party candidate that lost wrote an op-ed in the Tribune blasting the voters as being misinformed, which didn't sit very well with the people who read it, based on the reactions.  Still, yesterday Haynes broke his pledge and announced that he's running as an independent.

His stated basis for running was to give the taxpayers options and also because he feels that the state's preparation for Ebola is poor.

I generally don't express political opinions here, but the Ebola topic being interjected into Wyoming's gubernatorial race is just silly.  Haynes is a physician as well, which to my mind means he must at least have doubts about his stated reason for running as being a valid one, or he's so focused on hypothetical medical emergencies that he's grossly overemphasizing them.  Ebola isn't an American health emergency and its certainly not a Wyoming one.  It doesn't do Dr. Haynes very much credit to base his stated reason for running on Ebola.