Why would anyone panic over a very ill person

[MineralMan]

44. In 1991, I became a CDC statistic. While in Illinois,

I was apparently bitten by a mosquito. A week later, I was in a coma in Desert Hospital in Palm Springs, CA. I had contracted Eastern Equine Encephalitis, and it came within a hair of killing me. A mosquito bite while picking up my fiancee to drive to her new home in California with me. A blood sample went to the CDC, which identified the cause of my encephalitis. I got counted among the cases of Eastern Equine Encephalitis in the United States for that year. I survived, and had no lingering effects, but spend two weeks in hospitals before being able to go home with my fiancee. We got married after I got well.

Now, I had given such a thing no thought in my life. Each year, a few people have something similar happen to them. It's a risk of living in the United States, as is hantavirus, or even plague. Every year a few people contract the plague, after being bitten by a flea from an infected squirrel. Plague is endemic in squirrels in Western states. It's out there, and people get sick from it. A few die.

Life is risky. Sometimes we know about the risks, and sometimes we don't. If we know the risks, we try to avoid them. In the case of Ebola in the United States, the risks are far lower than my risk of getting EEE. But I did, anyhow. Something will kill me someday.