Ebola Crapola

The Ebola story has hit full force recently in the media, causing many people to form irrational conclusions based on ignorance, suspicion, and hype.  Today alone I saw a FOX News anchor babbling for a half an hour about it, read the opinions of some who attribute the stock market decline to it, and came across a story of a Texas congreeman who theorized that Obama is allowing it to spread so that he can declare an emergency and increase his executive powers.  Have we taken leave of our senses?

First of all let's establish what Ebola is.  It's a virus that is spread by contact with bodily fluids.  It's not as difficult to contract as HIV, but it's not as easy to contract as influenza either.  And while in the past it has been said to have a 90% mortality rate, this time around it's more like 60%.  And we should remember that the high mortality rate in Africa is largely due to their living conditions and culture. 
Secondly, let's remember that the DOW has recently been setting record highs of over 17,000 so a little profit-taking was in order.  Bear markets aren't triggered by unfounded fears of epidemics.  They're brought about by hard numbers from the business and financial worlds.  My guess is that by the end of the year we'll see the DOW approaching yet another record high.  (10/31/2014  .... UPDATE!!!  That was fast!  The DOW hit a new high today.   12/5/14 ... DOW approaching 18,000!) 

And finally, the idea that Obama is in any way basing his lack of an urgent response on some sinister motivation is not only baseless, it's embarrassingly stupid.  Just as with his response to the ISIS situation I attribute Obama's slow Ebola response to nothing more than incompetence.  Enough with the partisan conspiracy crap. 

Pandemic pandemoneum is nothing new.  In 1976 the Swine Flu was blamed for the death of a soldier at Fort Dix, New Jersey but the vaccine for the Swine Flu was blamed for 25 deaths.  In 1997 the Avian flu in Hong Kong was responsible for six deaths, but watching the news you would have thought that the death toll was in the thousands.  In 2003 SARS hit the headlineswhen 8,000 people contracted it leading to 774 deaths.  While this was more serious than the previous two, no deaths were reported in the U.S.  Then there is the West Nile virus, which brought a reported 10,000 cases in the U.S. over the past ten years with a mortality rate of around 5%.  More people die from the flu than that. 

The media loves these stories because most people don't know much about these diseases and in general people fear the unknown, and fear drives ratings.  When the light of truth shines on the subject the fears subside and the ratings dwindle and everybody gets on with their lives.  Such will doubtless be the case with the Ebola story as well.