Will You Die from Ebola? No, but You Might from the Flu.

[MineralMan]

The odds of contracting Ebola are extremely low in the United States. So low, in fact, that your odds of winning a big lottery jackpot are much higher. And if you don't get Ebola, you can't possibly die from it. However, the flu is another matter entirely. Each year in the United States, thousands of people die after catching the annual flu. Sometimes, the number is under 10,000. Other years, deaths from the flu exceed the number of deaths from traffic accidents. Tens of thousands of Americans die in a bad flu year.

Despite that, we don't panic about the flu. Just about everyone has had the flu at one or another point in their lives. We worry so little about the flu that a majority of Americans don't even bother to get a vaccination against it every year. It's odd, then, that a handful of Ebola cases here in the United States has become the leading story in the news, and continues to dominate most news broadcasts.

This year, the flu season hasn't really gotten underway. If it's like most years, flu cases, along with hospitalizations and a number of people dying from complications from the flu, won't peak until after the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. During those holidays, millions of people will fly from where they are to celebrate with family. Those flights do a remarkable job of spreading the flu to every town and hamlet across the country.

And yet, we're not panicked about the flu. Instead, we're panicked about an exotic, difficult to catch disease that just a few people in this country have.

My suggestion: Take your concern about Ebola and put it where it belongs. Be concerned about the flu. Go get your flu shot. Avoid what you can avoid and don't panic about something that's so unlikely to affect you that your odds of winning millions in the lottery are higher. That's my suggestion.

[mucifer]

1. Yup! Get your flu shots people if you can. Here in Chicago there are ways to get them

free with no insurance :

http://chicagoflushots.org/#seven

[MineralMan]

3. Thanks for that link. In most places, resources

exist to help people get the vaccine if they can't pay. Of course, just about every health insurance plan and Medicare cover the cost of a flu shot without even affecting your deductible.

[In_The_Wind]

2. I got my Flu Shot weeks ago.

Now, if I can manage to buy that winning lottery ticket I'll be a happy camper.

[MineralMan]

4. You can't win if you don't play!

That's what they say, anyhow.

[cali]

5. ebola here in the U.S.? Not a big threat to the vast majority. In West Africa?

a huge threat, and if it continues as it has been, all bets are off. We better (the world at large) get it together.

[MineralMan]

7. Which is why the words, United States,

are in the first paragraph of my post.

[KittyWampus]

6. As of today… your statement is true. If things spiral out of control it won't be true.

And the clusterf*ck that happened in Texas has eroded my confidence things will be kept contained.

Then there is the situation in W.Africa which also blends into the situation here and across the globe.

[MineralMan]

8. Spiral out of control?

Texas has involved three cases. Three. One was the initial patient and the other two were caregivers in the first case to present itself on its own in a U.S. hospital. The mistakes made in that situation were due to a lack of preparedness, since no such cases had ever appeared through the door of any hospital ER in the US before. Although we're slow to learn in the U.S., we do learn.

I don't see this "spiraling out of control" scenario actually occurring here. I have no doubt that there will be a few cased of Ebola in this country, but no epidemic. I'm just not seeing the likelihood of that being any sort a real threat.

The flu, on the other hand, is a predictable epidemic. And yet, we still have thousands dying from complications from that illness. Hence my post. We have the means to keep the number of deaths from the flu under control, and the flu vaccine is available everywhere. Still, only a minority of Americans will choose to protect themselves.

Now, that makes no sense at all.

[cali]

11. Yes, spiral out of control. You do realize that if it spirals out of control

in Africa, it will up the odds of an epidemic here, right? And you do realize that it is growing exponentially in West Africa, yes? The time frame in which we have to get this epidemic under control is not a long one.

[MineralMan]

13. Yes, I'm quite aware of the extent of the problem in West Africa.

I'm also aware of the population of those areas and of the percentage of that population that has contracted Ebola or died from it. I've been following that for some months now.

In the West African nations where this disease is not controlled, it is a severe problem. We're working with other nations and those affected nations to help to control the issue. A bit late, I think, but the response is accelerating.

A certain percentage of the population in those countries is affected. Travel between those three countries and the United States is limited in the number of people who are traveling. So far, one case of someone traveling here has appeared. One. In the meantime, the latest numbers I have seen indicate that roughly 150 people from those three countries combined travels to the U.S. each day. That's quite a few people over a month or so. And yet, we have just one case of a traveler with Ebola.

Why is that? It's primarily because most of the people who are contracting Ebola in those countries do not and cannot travel to the United States. So, few of those who do travel here have even been exposed to the virus. Percentages count. Demographics count. Determining the risks is an important part of managing this whole thing.

I live in a metro area that has about 30,000 immigrant residents from Liberia alone, along with others from other West African countries. People from here travel to Liberia and people from Liberia travel here on a regular basis. The numbers are not high, but there is travel. Similar situations exist in other metro areas. And still, only one case in the United States has appeared due to travel.

Am I panicked about this? Not at all. Am I paying attention to it? Of course I am. So are people in Brussels, where most flights from Liberia and Guinea land first after leaving those countries. Travel continues. People are rightfully watchful. Measures are being put in place, both in the places where Ebola is an issue and in travel destinations for people coming from those places.

The real concern is with conditions in the three countries where the disease is concentrated. Not here. I'm not concerned about my safety, even though I live in one of the metro areas where cases can be expected to appear. I'm concerned, however, with people who live in the three countries where the epidemic conditions are. That's where my attention is.

[ctaylors6]

12. Thank you for posting this

I'm in Dallas, and I've spoken to many people this week who have been reminded by the ebola news to get a flu shot. Flu was bad in this area last year. Also getting a flu shot has the added bonus here of reducing the number of people who go into doctors' offices and hospitals with flu symptoms, which look like ebola symptoms.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

9. The ebola / lottery metaphor to people's concerns dismissively seems flawed towards that end.

As you noted, concerning the lottery: you can't win if you don't play. So why do the supposed experts keep playing?

[MineralMan]

10. My comparison is really between the flu, a proven killer,

and Ebola, which is almost completely not established in the United States. The lottery comparison is just a statistical one.

My concern is that we are panicked about the wrong thing and unconcerned about something we should be very concerned about.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

15. I got the gist of your post but the only thing that is going to keep ebola from becoming a more

serious issue is the CDC getting its act together. People are worried because the so-called professionals look clueless and unconcerned, except to cover their own asses.

[HereSince1628]

14. The trouble with thinking and talking risks...

is that many things influence even a rational person's perception of risk.

There are conditioned and unconditioned risks. They aren't the same risk

Proximity to risk, is one thing, the consequences (severity, reversibility) of a risk that is realized is another.


Unconditioned risk means risk across the entire population including many in the population not exposed to the risk. Such as the general risk of dying as a passenger in an airplane crash. It's very low. It's so low it's touted as a safety feature.

Talking unconditioned risk is a common choice of people who want to depress anxiety about risk do. It's an approach used by big tobacco and the gun industry. People have gained some suspicion of it.

It was also the storyline of CDC public statements before Mr Duncan died and infected nursing staff appeared

Conditioned risk means risk within the framework of a realized event. Such as the risk of dying when you are actually in an airplane that is crashing. It's quite different from the unconditioned risk. As it turns out it even that depends a bit on things like the exact type of crash and where you are located and how you are restrained in the airplane. Or, a person's role in a hosptial where ebola cases have been acquired.

The CDC, State and hospital staff were likely mostly aware of these differences from the start, but the public still isn't.

Early on it was clear that the CDC's Frieden was talking unconditioned risk to the general public, and pushing issues to lessen conditioned risk to people in contact with and caring for ebola patients.

To an unknowing public addressing these different conditions of risk looked like the CDC was talking out of both sides of its mouth. The pubilc couldn't squar the mixed messages of low risk but need for quarantine of people and decontamination of apartment, ambulance etc.

As the tragedy of THP hospitals experience emerged public confidence about the risk of ebola understandably fell.

People are mostly concerned about converting from an unconditioned risk to a conditioned risk. They want to avoid that event--if you don't sit in an airplane seat it's very difficult to die seated in an airplane seat.

Now they are seeing the proximity of ebola changing. It has undertaken interstate travel on airplanes. People might have thought proximity to an ebola infection was so low as to make you at a negligible risk when boarding a plane in Ohio. Texas was far away, an airport and an airplanes in Ohio were unlikely places for ebola virus. But, there it was. An important feature that conditions how people think about risk suddenly changed in their minds. And understandably so.

Has the unconditioned risk for Americans really changed substantively? No, it's still in the half a million to one range

Has the conditioned risk changed? Well, -perception- of that risk has changed even among health authorities, as the public watched, the risk went from "can't happen in an American hospital"- to "Tighten up the protocols!"

People know when an "aw SHIT! moment has occurred, even when they don't understand the details. It raises people's uncertainty. It seems contrary to what's been communicated by what was until recently trusted authority.

Experience didn't follow expectation. Confidence in the risk assessment is a casualty. You can track the history of that even in GD.

Restoring that is important. But, I fear that dismissing people's concern is going to feed distrust. People aren't sophisticated about assessing risk or the profile of ebola. They have vague and thereby uncertain awareness that things are changed with a dangerous thing. I suspect for many people who never had or who have lost confidence about the risk they faced from ebola will see as diversionary arguments that the flu or a car ride is more risky than ebola.

When talking about ebola risk there is a huge difficulty. Substantially nothing has really changed to make the risk much worse. But events experienced by the public suggest to them that their ebola risk made a sea change as Mr Duncan flew across the Atlantic.

[MineralMan]

17. Yes. Unfortunately, neither the news media nor the government

appears to be communicating this very well. Add to that the limited ability of the general population to understand the explanations, even if they are given, and we get the kind of reaction we're seeing.

I'm certainly in no position to help solve that problem.

[HereSince1628]

18. I can't offer much either.

I think time might help...if more unexpected and bad things don't happen,

[Fumesucker]

16. This Ebola brouhaha has starkly illuminated just how disfunctional our healthcare system is

Not so much the lower level workers but at the management and executive level much of our healthcare system is abysmally run.

The elites had months to prepare and they basically did nothing while assuring everyone that everything was completely under control.

[MineralMan]

19. We are very poor at planning and preparation here.

That, at least, is endemic in our culture and economic system. We're reactive in most situations, rather than being proactive. We're not bad at responding to crisis situations, but we're very bad at anticipating those crises and preparing for them.

I don't see that changing anytime in the foreseeable future, either.

Personally, I doubt that this Ebola thing will develop into a nationwide crisis. I suspect that there will be more cases in a few metropolitan areas, but that it will be contained quickly and controlled. I live in one of those metro areas, the Twin Cities in MN. We have a substantial population of West African immigrants and there is travel that is ongoing. So, I imagine it will be only a matter of time before the first Ebola case appears here, probably in a traveler.

Based on the current local news, our medical centers are pretty well prepared for such a case to appear. Those preparations are being upgraded, based on the Dallas experience, as well. But, we'll probably have a case or two. We'll see how that works out.

[Fumesucker]

20. It's a matter of focus

There is no problem planning and preparing for that new plastic surgery wing of the hospital or the gold plated MRI machine and the latest CAT scanner or the cancer treatment center so no, it's not that we are bad at planning.

It's that American business culture does not allow planning for things that might not have a clear and fairly immediate monetary payoff. It's an inherent weakness of a for-profit healthcare system at least as American business culture currently exists and I certainly don't see that changing any time soon.

[MineralMan]

21. That too.

I wish I knew how to fix that. I don't, though. I'm a lone-wolf sort of person. In 1974, I decided to step away from traditional economic interactions and went to work for myself. And by myself. By doing that, I didn't have to work with any committees or boards and could launch whatever I thought I was capable of. All of my experiments in methods of earning a living worked out. None were amazingly successful, probably because I had zero interest in becoming more than a one-person company. But all worked out just fine.

I still had to sell stuff for money, whether it was words or ideas or actual physical things. But, I didn't have to deal with the rest of what goes into a business. I'm still taking that same approach and it's still working. I watch the other stuff that goes on, but am not interested in becoming part of commercial enterprises. It just isn't my thing.

In many ways, I'm just a spectator. That's a personal choice. At age 69, I'll be out of business altogether before too many more years pass. But, I'll get a few more years to watch the parade pass. That's good enough for me.