Lessons From Ebola: Who Do You Trust?

If we trusted that The Government would always take care of us, we wouldn’t be preppers. Crises make such trust particularly problematic. Is the Official Word downplaying the problem to reduce panic? Is the Official Word exaggerating the problem in an effort to justify claims to more power or property? Are the official measures best for us, or best for the population in general but not us in particular, or just best for the people promoting the measures?

We can learn something about these trust issues from the 2014/15 Ebola epidemic of West Africa. In some situations, the affected persons would have done better to trust the government. At other times that trust would have been misplaced. (I got my information primarily from a free online course produced by the Harvard Global Health Institute.) (1) 

The information the governments wanted people to trust

The video below was not actually put out by any government. Its main producers were the Red Cross/Red Crescent and UNICEF. (In my opinion, both those groups do have the best interest of the population as a whole at heart.) Nevertheless, it’s the sort of information the governments were working hard to get accepted by the people in the affected areas. It takes less than six minutes to watch.

The ideas many people in affected areas did trust:

Based on the behaviors of the West Africans in the affected areas, what many people actually believed had little to do with the Official Word.

“There is no Ebola epidemic; it’s just the government and health workers trying to control us.”  Health workers report encountering this flat disbelief. Where’d it come from? I can’t see any justification other than “I don’t want this to be true therefore I don’t believe it’s true.” No one benefitted if the people believed in a made-up epidemic, and don’t all conspiracy theories rely on someone benefitting from the lie? Humans everywhere Do show a wonderful ability to believe what they want to be true despite evidence and logic though.

“Don’t take your sick family to the Infection Control Centers; they’ll just be locked up to die.” Part of the spread of the epidemic came from people fleeing to distant villages at the first sign of symptoms, lest they be locked up in a government camp.

It’s easier to give a sick person a bed and keep them in an infection control center than it is to provide meaningful care.

“The health workers don’t know what they’re talking about.” This belief allowed people to just brush aside the recommendations of the health workers, and do things as they’d always been done. 

“Don’t go to the clinic or hospital for anything; you’ll get Ebola there.” Visits to health facilities for all non-Ebola reasons dropped precipitously in affected areas. Vaccinations, prenatal care, and childbirth visits dwindled to near nothing.

What deserved trust and what didn’t?

The epidemic being all made up? We only wish. It was all too real. Sometime the ‘it’s never happened here before’ thing happens. Some of the stories exaggerated the problem; others down-played it. Extracting the truth will be difficult.

People with symptoms of Ebola being held, even against their will, in Infection Control Centers? Yes. Would that happen, say, here in the U.S.? It did; health workers coming back from the epidemic areas were ordered out of contact with everyone for the three week latent period. 

Were the sick just locked up and left to die? Well … That wasn’t the intent. Especially early in the outbreak though, health workers and equipment were all in very short supply. The centers were much more effective at giving sick persons beds than in giving them high quality care. I’d say when the health system is over-burdened, that could be a recurring theme.

Did the health workers know what they were talking about? Yes. The hygiene practices that were their main focus reduced transmission considerably.

Would going to the clinic or hospital risk giving anyone Ebola? I think so. Ebola causes a lot of vomiting and diarrhea, and the fluids can transmit the virus. It’s awfully hard to get everything completely decontaminated. Even now in the U.S., the hospitals are absolutely the best places to catch multi-drug resistant germs.

What should preppers trust in an epidemic?

Historical evidence suggests whatever information we get will be incomplete and shaded based on the desires of the publisher. It’s likely to hold some truth though. Here are some conclusions I drew:

We stay away from where sick people are congregating unless our need is dire.

I would seek out health care in places where sick people are not congregating. Online health consultations and personal contacts with medical professionals would be good sources. West Africa saw a major spike in deaths from malaria, childbirth, and childhood diseases normally kept at bay by vaccinations during the epidemic. People neglected care for other issues. In modern America, sports medicine/orthopedic facilities often have good medical resources that are not visited by sick people.

If I or mine had to go to a medical center for care of the epidemic disease, I wouldn’t trust we’d be able to leave at will.

The choice to go to a medical center for care of the epidemic disease would depend on a judgment of how much care the medical center could actually offer.

We follow general recommendations on how to avoid transmission. They’re likely to be as accurate as available information allows.

If I or my people were sick with the epidemic disease, I would consider it my solemn responsibility to not spread the disease to other people. Self-isolation seems the answer. Fleeing and seeking care elsewhere while exposing unknowing others would be, well, evil. I’m a big believe in the maxxim: Don’t be evil.

Here is another post about what we can learn from the West African ebola epidemic.

1) Jha, Ashish. 2015. Lessons from Ebola: Preventing the next pandemic. Harvard Global Health Institute course, as distributed by EdX.