Maria Tammaro

New York Times

What We're Afraid to Say About Ebola
9/11/14
Summary: The New York Times article, What We're Afraid to Say About Ebola, talks about the
effects of Ebola virus throughout the world. It begins to discuss the two different paths this
epidemic outbreak can go down. One of those paths talks about the virus going air borne. This
will defiantly affect the world even greater than the H1N1 Influenza in 2009. Right now, the only
way the Ebola virus can be contracted is only by coming into contact with bodily fluids of an
infected human or the bodily fluids of an infected animal. But this strain of the virus is very
sloppy when replicating and infecting an organism because it will mutate. These mutations are
what is concerning many people and scientists throughout the world. The death toll has sky
rocketed to more than 2,300 and 4,300 cases over the past six months. But the theory about the
Ebola virus going air borne is estimated to have more than 1.2 million deaths. The other path
talks about the Ebola virus spreading to mega cities from people traveling which will easily
infect thousands. It is much easier to control an infected isolated village than mega cities with
millions. Africa has had about 19 outbreaks in the past forty years. But now Africa has had a
three hundred percent increase over the last four decades since they had an outbreak. Therefore
the Ebola virus will have an easy accessibility of infecting the whole population. The article also
talks about people becoming frightened of hospitals and trying to stay away from them because
they do not want to catch the virus. Even the health care workers are getting infected and more
than 120 of them have died because of the virus. Now, Liberia has only about 250 doctors left for
a population of about four million!
Critique: The Ebola virus falls under the social issue of health care because the virus has greatly
affected and is still greatly affecting millions of people all over the world. The major location
right now that is the center of attention is West Africa. Overall the New York Times article, What
We're Afraid to Say About Ebola, was written pretty well and caught my interest easily except
for the opinion part of it. I did not like how the author put about a fourth of the article dedicated
to how he thought the situation should be handled. He was saying that the United Nations needs
to send more help, materials, and resources to contain the epidemic outbreak. The article was
written in a nice, easy to read format and gave reasoning while explaining in depth. I think that
this Ebola virus issue has many different parts too it. There is the people that are affected by the
virus and people who are threatened and frightened about the virus.
Moral of Story: The most important message the author is sending to the audience is that the
Ebola virus is a serious matter that needs attention. He is trying to make people aware of the
reality of the whole entire situation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/12/opinion/what-were-afraid-to-say-about-ebola.html?_r=0