Jon Stewart mocked the role the media has played in spreading the hype surrounding the Ebola virus during Tuesday night’s “The Daily Show.”
Stewart opened the show celebrating the “good news” of sanctions being placed on Russia and a cease-fire in Gaza, saying it was something to commemorate after a “doomsday-y” summer.
The screen then flashed to several news stations’ reports on the “Ebola alert” and the “fast growing Ebola outbreak.” Stewart responded with sheer panic.
“What the f**k! Oh my god!” Stewart exclaimed wearing a plastic hood and squirting hand sanitizer on his face. “First it was war, then it was plague, we’re either in the end times or a sci-fi original movie. We’re all in danger!”
Stewart calmed for a moment after learning that Ebola cases were mostly contained to West Africa, but then came word that a patient in New York was being tested for Ebola after experiencing symptoms.
That pushed Stewart back into a frenzy. He began taping pieces of the plastic hood to his face.
Watch below, from Comedy Central:
Yet measles kills 125k people a year, vs less than 5k killed by ebola cumulatively in the history of mankind. Totally preventable with a $20 shot, but we let fucking morons kill their kids and put entire communities at risk by refusing vaccinations based on one falsified ancient study and a has-been b-list actress.
Where’s the panic and outrage over that?
Actually the total from Ebola is about 2500, and 900 of those are from the current outbreak. It’s just not an epidemic disease like people seem to think of it.
Ebola is a very difficult disease to contract, but a killer once contracted. Medical professionals are the folks most at risk. That is how the two American missionary doctors contracted it–working directly with ebola infected patients. It is sort of like rabies except monkeys carry it instead of skunks and bats.
For more context, influenza kills 36K a year in the U.S. alone.
Also, a grammar note. “Media,” are plural. Therefore, the proper usage is “media have,” not “media has.” Seeing this sort of thing is like fingernails on the blackboard for me - and I suspect others. I’ll crawl back under my rock now.
Unless someone is a microbiologist, I am really not interested in hearing their thoughts about Ebola, to be honest. That excludes virtually everyone on TV talking about it.
Also, I tweeted what I just said above yesterday, and one of my followers said “good news, I’m a microbiologist, and I can tell you this Ebola fear is bullshit”