In "Ebola : A crash course in fear and how it hurts us" (Web, Oct.23),the writer says that the fear of getting Ebola is more likely than Ebola itself to make Americans sick.I agree that Americans shouldn't get upset simply because Ebola has come here. If you look at statistics, there is a one-in-5,000 chance that a person in Monrovia,Liberia,will be infected by Ebola but is only a one-in-13.3 million chance of contracting Ebola in America this year,based on a model of 12 imported case of Ebola over the course of a year.
So the probability of someone contracting Ebola in the United States is minuscule.Some simple ways to avoid getting Ebola are washing your hands and avoiding areas of known outbreaks.I have information from clinics that the following methods also work as well: not handling Ebola-infected remains,not buying bush meat from developing countries and not coming into contact with infected people. I have done research on this topic and found this advice to be sound.
President Obama is spending way too much money on the fight against Ebola. The government is estimating the financial cost to be about 500 million,and in terms of human cost,Mr.Obama is putting more than 3,000 troops at risk of contracting the disease in West African countries.
Overall,the statistics show how small our chances of contracting this disease here at home really are.Most sources agree that Americans are making a huge deal over nothing. It's up to the reader to decide if this outbreak is really worth the fuss.