KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
These days, it seems like there's also no exit plan from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Public health experts say intense worldwide concern about the virus is appropriate, but experts say the outbreak also has produced a lot of fears that are, well, unfounded. In fact, a new Harvard poll shows fears and misconceptions about Ebola are widespread in this country. Two-thirds of people believe Ebola spreads easily, and more than a quarter fear they or someone in their immediate family could catch
Ebola. NPR's Rob Stein reports.
ROB STEIN, BYLINE: Even just the word itself - Ebola - is kind of terrifying. Why? - well, Hollywood has a lot to do with it - like this 1995 movie.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "EBOLA")
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: In a remote African jungle, a small monkey is captured, bound for a pet store in America. The animal carries a deadly virus.
STEIN: You remember "Outbreak" - Dustin Hoffman, Donald Sutherland - nasty virus causes massive bleeding - liquefies organs. Sounds kind of familiar, doesn't it?
DONALD SUTHERLAND: (As General Donald McClintock) Try to remain calm.
DUSTIN HOFFMAN: (As Sam Daniels) Many people are dying and are going to continue to die unless we find this monkey.
ANNOUNCER: The greatest medical crisis of all time. We can't stop it.
STEIN: Oh and this about another awful virus that lands in the United States.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CONTAGION")
JUDE LAW: (As Alan Krumwiede) On day one, there were two people and then four and then 16. In three months, it's a billion. That's where we're headed.
STEIN: In the 2011 film "Contagion" Jude Law plays a San Francisco journalist covering an outbreak started by Gwyneth Paltrow's character - sounds pretty familiar, too, doen't it? But there are some huge differences between those movies and what's happening right now in West Africa. Stephen Morse, a virologist at Columbia University, says the big one is how Ebola spreads.
STEPHEN MORSE: Luckily for us - unlike the movies - it does not spread like wildfire - in fact, does not even spread the way the flu does. It's not that easy to catch.
STEIN: It takes way more than a sneeze or cough. You need direct contact with an infected person's bodily fluid, like their blood. Another big difference is that there's absolutely no evidence the Ebola virus is mutating in a way that would, suddenly, make it go crazy.
MORSE: This just doesn't happen in real life. If it isn't transmissible that easily, then it's not, suddenly, going to acquire that ability and, suddenly, move across the entire globe the way the fictionalized outbreak has it doing.
STEIN: But OK, we may get all that. But still, it's, well, Ebola - Ebola. Paul Slovic at the University of Oregon studies what freaks people out. In fact, he's created something he calls the dread factor to identify what scares us the most.
PAUL SLOVIC: Uncontrollability - catastrophic potential - fatal consequences and involuntary exposure. These are the elements that kind of go together to make up what we call the dread factor.
STEIN: So how does Ebola score?
SLOVIC: Ebola would be extreme on the dread factor.
STEIN: That means Ebola's just the kind of thing that would tend to make people overreact big-time when, say, the first infected person steps off a plane somewhere unannounced.
SLOVIC: There might be kind of counterproductive activities - perhaps, wanting these people transported out of the community - who knows? - restricting of our own activities in unnecessary ways.
STEIN: Now, no one's saying Ebola isn't a dangerous virus we need to take very seriously. But if people start to panic, it might create so much turmoil that it starts to take a toll of its own and divert attention from the very real human suffering already occurring in West Africa. Rob Stein, NPR News.
MCEVERS: It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
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