A Huffington Post headline on Monday about the Ebola virus, taking up the entire screen in Huffington Post's typically large, bold font, read: "The Most Severe Health Emergency Seen in Modern Times." Meanwhile, the Voice of America headlined a story on the same topic: "New U.S. Ebola Case Raises Fears," while The New York Times headlined a story on the crisis thusly: "W.H.O. Chief Calls Ebola Outbreak a 'Crisis for International Peace.'"
One might think, with this type of apocalyptic news coverage, the American public would increasingly be worried and concerned about their own chances of catching the disease, and/or their government's ability to handle it.
Not so.
We find hardly any movement at all in Americans' concerns about Ebola when comparing interviewing done this past Saturday and Sunday (Oct. 11-12) with interviewing conducted the previous week (Oct. 4-5).
Here are the trends:
• Overall, 23% of Americans worried yesterday about getting the Ebola virus this week, compared with 22% last week.
• In addition, 16% of Americans were concerned that they or their family would get Ebola this weekend, compared with 14% last weekend.
• And 60% of Americans were confident that the government could handle an outbreak of the Ebola virus in the U.S. this weekend, compared with 61% last weekend.
None of these week-to-week changes are statistically significant. And keep in mind that, in turn, these attitudes were remarkably similar to attitudes about H1N1 or swine flu back in 2009.
There may be a delayed reaction to the news coverage. An increase in concern may be forthcoming, particularly if there is news of more people contracting the disease or if more deaths are reported. It may also be that, as long as the Ebola virus is confined to just a few specific locations within the country, the vast majority of the public who are not in those locations will not be concerned. Whatever the reason, and whatever may happen in the future, however, the bottom line at this juncture is that overall concern levels are no higher now than they were for the swine flu breakout some five years ago, and have not changed at all over the past seven days.