Without being snarky, just stating the facts... there is a wide range of intelligence in the American population. Some are educated and intelligent, others are not. Ebola doesn't seek out only those who take the time and have the intelligence to understand the difference. If the message is "you can get Ebola from someone's sneeze" gets across the point that "you can get Ebola from someone's sneeze", and it is the truth that "you can get Ebola from someone's sneeze", then what is the point of making the message more complicated?
The average person needs to stop being a moron, and they won’t stop until we MAKE them.
I don't think the average person is a moron. I think the average person has a domain of knowledge, and a set of interests. Not everyone can know the technical details of every field of knowledge. The technical details of the difference between the epidemiological definitions of "airborne" and "aerosolized droplets" is not, in my opinion, something the average person needs to know, especially when it will change nothing in the precautions they need to take in an epidemic, and when the point is that "you can get Ebola from someone's sneeze."
But there probably won’t BE any pediatric Ebola cases in this country. In the entire 40 years we’ve known about it we’ve had a dozen or so come in with it...
And you don't see any differences in this outbreak of Ebola from the previous outbreaks?! A few weeks ago we were assured that the likelihood of any cases of Ebola in the U.S. were negligible. And what happened only a few days later? Why would a pediatric case be any less likely to appear in the U.S. than an adult case, aside from the simple fact that there are more adults than children?
But again, it’s information we USED to be able to understand. Just 20 years ago we handled it. So clearly we can again. But not if we ass-u-me we can’t. People will never be smarter than you force them to be, let them be morons they stay morons, force them to do a little learning they actually learn something.
It’s NOT making the message more complicated, using the correct terms in the correct ways actually makes the mess LESS complicated because reducing complication is why those words came to have those meanings. Complications come in when you start saying “well maybe people won’t understand that word, let’s say it this way” because “this way” isn’t going to actually cover. When you start saying sneezing then you’re leaving out coughing, breathing, puking, etc etc etc. “Not airborne” already covers ALL that in 2 words, less complicated.
If the average person can’t understand a word they used to understand 20 years ago they are indeed morons. We aren’t talking about technically detailed stuff, it’s not a genome sequence or a T rating or something hard. It’s a simple concept, one which we used to understand, time for people to understand it again.
The big difference here is this outbreak is really 2 outbreaks that dovetailed into each other. And the inevitable finally happened. We’ve known for 40 years eventually ebola would get out of Africa, the world is just too damn small and keeps shrinking. And now it happened, got a couple in Europe, got a couple here. But we have better habits here, we’re cleaner, we don’t stick dead bodies in taxis. It’s still not going to be a big outbreak here. Much like bubonic plague, which is still active in the world and can even be found in the wild here but is no longer a major plague threat because we’re better at handling this kind of stuff than we used to be. And understand the chance of catching it here are STILL negligible. 2 people caught it here, out of 311 million, that’s still basically nobody.
“A few weeks ago we were assured that the likelihood of any cases of Ebola in the U.S. were negligible. And what happened only a few days later? “
That simply is not true. People don’t seem to listen. Here are quotes from Frieden, with dates, and sources below.
“I have no doubt that we’ll stop this in its tracks in the U.S.,” Frieden said at news conference on Sept. 30. “The bottom line here is that I have no doubt that we will control this importation, or this case, of Ebola so that it does not spread WIDELY in this country.” Two cases of nurses is hardly a widespread disease.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-four-ebola-quotes-haunt-frieden-20141016-story.html
““Unfortunately, it is possible in the coming days we will see additional cases of Ebola,” Frieden said Sunday. “ Oct 12
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/cdc-director-more-ebola-cases-are-possible-2014-10-12