fear

• When you're done, read my friend Ruhi's response to this post here!

Ebola. It seems to be a word that is being used almost as much as "like" these days. The fear of getting the disease is almost paralyzing for some, where others joke about it constantly.

A photo of a man protesting flights from affected countries in order to quell spreading of the disease.
via

*Let me also preface this post with the fact that I am absolutely not an expert of any sort and am going off of information from various articles on the web, and from my own personal experience*

The actual disease of Ebola is something to be feared in my opinion. With a survival rate of around 30% and the fact that it ravages your body for two weeks making your internals organs essentially bleed out. It's not exactly a pleasant experience, so I understand the fear that some people have.

One thing I do not understand however, is the constant joking about the disease. I feel like this joking may be a way to cope with the fear, no matter how small or large that fear is, in the back of our mind. It has come to the point where "Ebola!" seems to be the punch line of every joke. This shouldn't be a joke, it should be viewed seriously, although perhaps not with the intense terror that some are currently afflicted with.

I feel like this current outbreak is sort of a humbling experience. The US, or at least many people in the US, like to believe that we have complete control over everything that effects our country and that, come a global issue such as this one, we will be 100% protected because, 'Hey! We're the United States of America!' It's a bit of a control complex if you think about it. When something like Ebola comes upon us [the US], we're often taken by surprise that such a horrible disease could be carried to the States.

Although the US is currently taking steps to prevent the spread of the disease such as equipping the Pentagon with a deployable medical response team, or setting up check-points in major airports through out the country, I feel like there is more that could be done, or that should have been done sooner. But similar to the fact that you simply cannot incarcerate every criminal, we cannot catch every case of Ebola that enters the country before the victim is even suffering symptoms because it's simply impossible.

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I could go on and on about this for weeks probably, but I'll spare you from that for now.

A great resource for quick info on topics such as Ebola is "The Skimm" available here.
I hope everyone has a safe and healthy weekend!
Jordan