Following a segment on Ebola patient Amber Vinson’s travels, Fox News host Shepard Smith went off on how the disease’s potency is being blown out of proportion. Smith specifically blames the media for the current panic regarding the virus.
Doug McKelway: [Sylvia Burwell and Dr. Tom Frieden] admitted that this latest health care worker to come down with the virus flew the day she was admitted to the hospital, and flew with a temperature of 99.5 degrees before she boarded the flight. The national board of health says that constitutes a fever, although it is below the threshold for Ebola fever of 100.4 degrees, so that shouldn’t raise anymore doubts in their eyes, Shep, but it is, as we’re seeing from widespread panic across the country.
Shepard Smith: Oh my God. Doug, I appreciate it, but I think we both know there’s no widespread panic across the country and we both know — and I think we also know that if there is widespread panic, it’s not based in fact, and it’s not based in reason, and I think more than anything, those are just words that people on TV sometimes use.
But this is serious, in that two health care workers have died [Editor’s Note: The two health care workers infected with Ebola are still alive] in Texas. It’s very serious for their families and in West Africa where it is spreading and it is an epidemic, where they don’t bury people in the same way they do here, and where they don’t have facilities like we do, and where one person with Ebola stays in the house with mom and dad and the grandchildren. That makes it spread and that’s awful.
We don’t have widespread panic in America. We should not have it. We don’t have an outbreak. We have two sick people from one dying man. And the rest of this should stop, because it’s not productive, and it’s not worth ratings, and it’s not worth politics, and we all need to stop it.
Because some day there may be a real panic. Some day, something may start spreading that they can’t control and then you know what we’re going to have to do? We’re going to have to relax and listen to leaders. We’re not going to panic when we’re supposed to and we’re certainly not going to panic now. We have to stop it.
Wall Street, though, is panicking, but that’s Wall Street. I mean, what do you expect? The Dow has taken its steepest fall in more than three years. Would you look at that. It’s not as bad as it was earlier in the day. But there is not widespread panic on Wall Street and there is not widespread panic in America.
[h/t: RCP]