Concerned about Ebola? You’re worrying about the wrong disease (The Guardian)

 

This article serves to disprove the widespread and recent fear that the Ebola virus is set to spread into the United States, Britain, and the rest of the northern hemisphere in the coming months resulting in thousands of deaths due to the incurable disease. The author of the piece, James Ball, begins by stating this popular belief that has arisen amidst alarming headlines claiming that there is no way to prevent the spread of the virus and that it currently has no vaccine or cure. The objective of the article is to prove that these fears are irrational and the entire situation has been exaggerated, as he states in the subheading: “Despite the terrifying headlines, almost none of us will get sick from Ebola—our fears often bear little relation to reality.”

The author firstly goes into details of Ebola with medical information about the virus, such as how there is no existent cure or lasting and effective vaccine. Next, he states that the illness that has been taking over the news recently is not Ebola, but rather it is the common flu. In order to show how the media has been providing incorrect information about the disease and striking fear into the hearts of anyone reading the headlines, Ball states his theory: that this is because rather than the media leaning towards accuracy, it is more drawn to “the novel and lurid rather than the particularly dangerous.” He then uses statistical information and evidence of recently published articles on the supposed spread of the Ebola virus to provide the reader with concrete proof to support his opinion. To do so, he references inaccuracies about Ebola in well-known news sources such as The Daily Mail and various New York news outlets.

Finally, the author of the article explains that while Ebola is causing many tragic deaths in West Africa, the overall spread of the virus should not be a point of concern for people living elsewhere, especially since the spread of the disease is linear rather than exponential. In other words, “other infectious diseases are far, far deadlier.” Ball then goes on to list several illnesses, such as malaria, tuberculosis, and Lassa fever, which have caused many more fatalities than Ebola has, continuing to grow at an exponential rate; and which, in his opinion, should be the real source of fear, rather than a media-exploited disease which is of little risk to most of us.

While Ball’s overall objective with this article was to show that Ebola is nothing to worry about and that the fear of the virus has been blown out of proportion by recent media coverage, he does not provide enough information to successfully prove this claim. In regards to his comparison of Ebola and the common flu, there is no evidence that the people experiencing such side effects actually had influenza and not Ebola itself. Furthermore, while he provides several examples of illnesses which should be more feared than Ebola, this is not necessarily relevant to his opinion and serves little purpose other than showing that other diseases exist in the world. Overall, the author does not provide the reader with enough concrete proof that his ideas are anything more than just his own opinion; with little statistical evidence and some irrelevance of information he has chosen to include.   

 

 

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