Ebola in the US

[MotherofDragons]

A man was diagnosed on US soil with ebola on Tuesday.

Everyone keeps trying to reassure me that the US has a "robust healthcare system" and that this will not lead to a massive outbreak, but I have no faith in a healthcare system that sent a man from Liberia, who came to the ER with symptoms of the virus, home with antibiotics!!!

Freaking out here! :weep:

[Serenity1990]

One person in 318,000,000 got it. So you have a 1/318000000 chance of getting it.

For perspective:

Your odds of winning the lottery in your lifetime if you do it twice a week for fifty years are 1/2692.

Your odds of getting struck by lightening are 1/300000.

The odds of dying from being left handed is 1/4400000

The odds of becoming a Hollywood movie star are 1/1505000

The odds of being killed by misuse of a vending machine are 1/112000000

All these things are more likely than you even contracting Ebola. If you're not worried about any of them, it's thus irrational to worry about Ebola.

Also note that 100% of Ebola patients in the US have made a full recovery (to my knowledge at least).

[MyNameIsTerry]

Ebola spreads due to poor sanitation in those countries and we have more understanding of these issues so they are far less likely to spread anyway.

The media blows all these things up with the aim of selling newspapers and they tend to be less focussed on the facts rather than sensationalism. Your government, along with ours and loads of others, have been discussing how to control the spread for a while and there have been several outbreaks in previous years where they have practiced the same so they know what they are doing. Their record for preventing the spread speaks for itself.