So much news about Ebola is going out every day. It can be confusing for some people with all the hype, scare and rumors flying around. You just want to say WTF! Will we control it? Is it coming our way? Hey, do you even know what it is…
What it is/history of Ebola. Ebola is just some African disease that popped up in December, right? WRONG. Ebola is a virus that has been around since 1976. It is contracted by close contact with the sweat, blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected people or animals. The worst previous outbreak was in Uganda and 425 contracted it, with a little over half dying. Now, the biggest outbreak is happening. 4,447 people have died so far from this outbreak, mainly from West Africa.
Cases in the US. The first cases of Ebola were from three doctors that were flown in from Africa. The first shocking case was when a civilian, Thomas Eric Duncan, flew in from Liberia with the virus and died days later. After Texas health workers tried to save him, one nurse was diagnosed with Ebola, now a second health worker has Ebola as well.
Cases outside of the US. In Spain, a woman, Theresa Romero, tested positive for Ebola but is now negative two weeks later. She was the first person to catch it outside of West Africa. There was a major uproar when they euthanized her dog in worry that the dog had it too.
Signs and symptoms. Signs and symptoms are headache, joint and muscle ache, high fever, sore throat, weakness, stomach pain and lack of appetite. The disease is not contagious until symptoms are present.
Ebola scare. There have been a few scares recently, one was even close by in Kansas City. A man came from Africa and had a fever. After being quarantined at the KU medical center, blood tests were ran and it concluded that he was negative for the virus. Finally some good news. Some people take Ebola as a joke. A man on a plane said that he had Ebola and was quickly taken off the plane and put in quarantine for a week over a joke.
What the government is doing. Many believe that the government is not doing enough. There is a lot of talk about restricting all flights to and from West Africa but there is the argument that we will not be able to get our doctors over there to help them. What they are doing about flying is making it more difficult by taking everyone’s temperature, even though the person could have Ebola without a high temperature. The reason that Obama does not want to restrict flights is because he says “Ebola is not easy to catch.” And in reality it is not because it is only contracted by bodily fluids. He appointed a czar, Ron Klain, to deal with the Ebola situation and to make sure things are handled.
Chris Brown’s conspiracy theory. There are plenty of people out there that are thinking about conspiracy theories but Chris Brown got chewed out for this tweet: “I don’t know … But I think this Ebola epidemic is a form of population control. S–t is getting crazy bruh.” People responded with tweets such as “You’re not a smart person … at all,” “You believe this based on what evidence? Oh yeah, none” and “Why morons gotta be famous?”
Social media turns it into a racial issue. People are questioning whether or not Chris Brown was referring that only black people are being targeted or if people as a whole are being targeted. He is not the only one on social media though. There are people comparing Thomas Duncan to all of the other US Ebola survivors. Some think it is because of his skin color why he died. All of the doctors were white and he was black.
Effects on the stock market. Whenever there is any kind of economic change it effects the stock market. In this case there are many stocks that are shooting up due to medicine research and anything involving Ebola. Jon Schultz is also making big bucks by selling the domain name, ebola.com, for $150,000 after he bought it in 2008 for $13,500.
Good news. The Ebola outbreak in Nigeria is over as of Monday, Oct. 20, 2014.
Sources:
http://time.com/money/3506056/ebola-dot-com-domain-sale/
http://news.yahoo.com/hospital-exec-on-ebola-crisis-we-are-deeply-sorry-051612718.html
http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/ebola-fever-virus-infection
http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/outbreaks/2014-west-africa/united-states-im…
http://news.yahoo.com/nigerias-ebola-outbreak-officially-over-104227798.html
http://news.yahoo.com/spain-nursing-assistant-clear-ebola-virus-190214536.html