[nikolaj]

The headline variations are quite interesting:

CNBC: First confirmed case of Ebola confirmed in the United States: CDC

NYT: Airline Passenger With Ebola Is Under Treatment in Dallas

BBC: First Ebola case diagnosed on US soil

CNN: Ebola case is the first diagnosed in the U.S.

FOX: EBOLA HITS AMERICA CDC identifies first case on US soil

Obviously Fox takes the FUD crown, but I thought the NYT actually misrepresented it a bit..

[k-mcgrady]

>> "Obviously Fox takes the FUD crown, but I thought the NYT actually misrepresented it a bit.."

I actually think they were closest to accurate. The other headlines all make it sound like this man caught ebola in the US. They are the only one to indicate he was abroad. I think they've undersold it a bit as he spent several days in the US before being isolated but everyone else has sensationalised to an extent imo (or written the headline in a way that allows us, the reader, to accidentally sensationalise it).

[GrinningFool]

Looking just at the headline, you only know that he was an airline passenger and not abroad. Too, you know immediately that he was in an airliner - a small metal tube, with hundreds of people breathing the same air!

It's actually a pretty masterful headline, in that it doesn't actually come out and say any of that. It seems calm and fairly accurate, but is worded very carefully to encourage fear.

Nothing accidental there.

[hga]

Until he was symptomatic, 4 days after arriving, he wasn't infectious. Or so we believe, with a fair amount of data; obviously we'll be drastically extending our knowledge over the next few years.

[GrinningFool]

Sure, but that's not the point. The headline is subtly encouraging people to think of it as I described.

[harshreality]

What is FUD about it? This is potentially how a epidemic starts.

Stopping this spread depends on everyone checking into a hospital when potential ebola symptoms start, which doesn't happen. Even the current patient didn't think to go to the hospital when he became symptomatic. He potentially infected others. Those contacts have to be traced and put in observational quarantine before they become symptomatic, if they do. If one contact was infected and is missed by the epidemiologists, then the whole process starts over, because whoever it is probably won't know it's ebola and will be symptomatic for days before getting more serious and going to the hospital.

We're also close to the flu season, which has a lot of overlapping early symptoms. If nobody else was infected, or if they proactively quarantine everyone who was infected before symptoms start, then we're good. Otherwise...

I don't understand why there are flights allowed out of ebola-stricken countries. We know ebola has an incubation period. This was just a matter of time.

[jerryhuang100]

FOX: EBOLA WAR ON US SOIL

[kazazes]

Sounds more like Drudge to me.