TOW #7(opinion article) "What We're Afraid to Say About Ebola" by Michael T. Olsterholm

     Any updated person knows that the world is on the verge of facing a pandemic of ebola. The ebola virus is transmitted through bodily fluids and causes high fever and severe internal bleeding. It is most prevalent currently in West Africa in countries such as Sierra Leone and Liberia, but there are many things about ebola that the world doesn't know yet, especially it's potential to alter history. In "What We're Afraid to Say About Ebola", Michael T. Olsterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, uses possible outcomes of the ebola virus and an overall theme of fear to urge Americans to take action and control on the ebola outbreak and not let the ebola outbreak take control of us.

      Olsterholm hypothesizes possible situations that may arise if the ebola outbreak is treated that way it is treated now to allow his audience to recognize this future as unacceptable and create change since people know how ebola is currently devastating West Africa but not what ebola might do in the future. He states that the first situation, one that many have thought of already, is if the virus spreads to megacities around the world in developing nations. However another possibility that others might have considered, but too afraid to speak up about, is if the ebola virus mutates into an airborne disease. If this happened, the ebola virus would become a pandemic and destroy the world population. Olsterholm uses this cataclysmic end to have people realize that something has to be done and quickly before the virus gets out of hand.

     

Connected closely to Olsterholm's frightening, yet possible, futures of the world, a sense of fear is also created by the article in order to get people to take action. Not only do the possible futures discussed earlier scare, but Olsterholm uses alarming facts such as " health care workers have been infected with Ebola, and more than 120 have died", "Liberia has only 250 doctors left, for a population of four million" and the one that gets Olsterholm's American audience the most riled up is the fact that "if we wait for vaccines and new drugs to arrive to end the Ebola epidemic, instead of taking major action now, we risk the disease’s reaching from West Africa to our own backyards". The truth that it is very possible that ebola could reach America is spine chilling to many people, myself included, and can create the hysteria that might be needed to take the critical action that needs to be taken before ebola reaches us.