Ebola hype fosters the dangers of both panic and desensitization
For anyone who likes science fiction stories, Hollywood films such as Contagion are always riveting. In such films, the world panics as a deadly virus begins killing millions of people, slowly bringing devastation to the world. The outbreak of Ebola within the United States has drawn quite a parallel to storylines like this. Though the constant stream of media coverage seems to feed into the dangers of hype, the issue of desensitization could also pose a threat when people decide to joke about actually having Ebola. If the media blows the disease out of proportion, the effects of heightened panic could backfire, causing more people to dismiss the gravity this epidemic calls for.
Just this month, a man wearing a surgical mask, as he was exiting a Los Angeles Metro bus, yelled, “Don’t mess with me; I have Ebola!” While the driver remained on his route, he later took the bus out of commission so it could be investigated. In the end, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health ruled it out as a hoax.
Unfortunately, similar jokes in public spaces about Ebola have occurred since the virus made its appearance in the United States. According to NBC, on Oct. 10, a man on a flight from Philadelphia sneezed and jokingly said, “I have Ebola! You are all screwed.” The statement caused passengers on the flight undergo medical examinations after landing to ensure the threat was not a serious one.
These two examples play on the panic spread by the excessive news coverage of Ebola, the jokes simultaneously demonstrating the desensitization that comes with the hype. According to the Chicago Tribune, the “careful Obama administration pronouncements about the limited threat posed to most Americans by Ebola were being drowned out by ‘wall-to-wall coverage of Ebola’ on cable news networks.”
These days, separating reality from fiction has become increasingly difficult. Columnist Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune noted, “The world has become so complex — the competing data sets that we find on our computers so tricky to dissect and intuit — we rely more and more on stories as a means of basic comprehension, especially in crisis.”
According to Priscilla Wald, a professor of English at Duke University, virus contagion narratives do not address the very real roots of epidemics, such as poverty, poor health care and faulty infrastructure. “Microbes, spaces, and interactions blend together as they animate the landscape and motivate the plot of the outbreak narrative,” Wald said in her book Contagious: Cultures, Carriers, and the Outbreak Narrative. It is important for people to remember that epidemics don’t fit that easily into such suspenseful, thrilling frameworks. The end of the epidemic does not come just because it’s been “defeated” as the narrative closes. Rather, the world must reach an understanding the causes of outbreaks and learning how to combat them from there. What people need to start learning is the importance of deciphering fact from fiction.
“[We] remain confident that Ebola is not a significant public health threat to the United States,” Thomas Frieden, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a statement. “We know Ebola can be stopped with rapid diagnosis, appropriate triage, and meticulous infection-control practices in American hospitals.” There is also, however, no reason to joke about having Ebola.
It is important for Americans to remember the facts about Ebola before resorting to extremes, because both ends of the spectrum hold many dangerous social implications.
Chelsea Hernandez is a senior majoring in English (creative writing). Her column, “Foot in Mouth,” runs Wednesdays.