Vox has the only quiz anyone ever needs to take about whether or not they have Ebola: Have you been in contact with the bodily fluids of someone who does have Ebola?
If the answer is no, cross the highly contagious disease currently rampaging African countries off the list and stop worrying, Vox suggests.
With news media attention swarming around the Texas man who returned from Africa last week and was later diagnosed with the disease, the media isn't just paying attention to the some 7,000 confirmed cases in Africa, some say they're fueling paranoia now that the disease has come to U.S. soil.
"I’ve been grappling with this question for days: Are the media now playing an alarmist role in covering Ebola as if it were an American epidemic? Or are they carrying crucial information to a worried public?" Fox News analyst Howard Kurtz asked in a recent column about the number of CNN stories devoted to the outbreak.
Kurtz's question might be a fair one, given the sheer volume of coverage about a disease that, as Poynter's Ken White pointed out, is often controlled and cured with medical care that is lacking in Africa, but common in the U.S.
Kurtz's frustration was underscored on his own network, when "Fox and Friends" host Elizabeth Hasselbeck pressed an infectious disease expert over not being "panicked" over Ebola's limited presence in the U.S.
"But it's here," Hasselbeck insisted after the specialist explained repeatedly that Ebola, unlike something like the flu, is only contracted through contact with infected bodily fluids, not through air or other indirect contact.
Salon's Joanna Rothkopf contended in a recent post that the media ignorance reached a new low with politicians like South Carolina Republican Party director Todd Kincannon tweeting that people with Ebola in the U.S. should be "put down."
"Not only is this a suggestion of mass murder, it is also totally misinformed because you can still easily contract Ebola from a dead person… even one that Kincannon selflessly killed to save an American life," Rothkopf wrote.
Despite the facts about how Ebola is spread, Fox also crafted segments around why President Barack Obama hasn't sealed U.S. borders to prevent any contact with anyone who may have Ebola. Covering a story that's impacting a continent is one thing, but ignoring the facts to create fear is another, Rothkopf argued.
"In Liberia, citizens are now dying of totally preventable and treatable diseases because there are no resources left over for them," Rothkopf wrote. "Buck up, American public figures. You are not going to get Ebola, and you are at best gravely misinformed for thinking otherwise. Actual people are dying by the thousands."
Email: chjohnson@deseretnews.com
Twitter: ChandraMJohnson