In Each Recent Ebola Outbreak, Fear And Hostility From The Communities... Has Been A Vexing Issue. But In No Manner A Unique One.

So too, in this 2026 version -- but the burning of 12 treatment facilities. . . seems more extreme (so far), even when compared to the 2012-14 outbreak. That one killed over 11,300. [We are likely approaching 1,000 deaths this time, but perhaps there were 500 deaths before it was officially accepted in DRC that the current outbreak was underway.]

The NYT has an excellent long-form look into this phenomenon, this morning. Here's that -- proving that this is common -- across various pandemics, centuries -- and cultures:

. . .[T]his would be easy to chalk up to poor education and anachronistic rituals: “Fear and ignorance as ebola ‘out of control’ in parts of west Africa,” as one Guardian headline put it in 2014. But unrest during epidemics is not about Ebola, Africa or education. It is something societies have struggled with for centuries, and it is evident in rich countries as well as poor ones, in modern times and medieval ones.

During the Covid pandemic, Western doctors, nurses and health officials received not only applause and gratitude but also death threats. Patients denied that Covid existed as they died of the disease. Protesters carrying guns occupied sidewalks outside hospitals. Multitudes embraced treatments, such as ivermectin, that study after study showed to be ineffective. Vaccinators in Italy were assaulted. A German gas station attendant and a Michigan Family Dollar security guard were killed after asking customers to wear masks. . . .

[Public health] outbreaks elicit a contradictory mix of responses. They often unfold in three acts, wrote Charles E. Rosenberg, a medical historian: First, people deny reality and put off behavioral changes that might slow the spread. Then they demand explanations, often blaming “individual and community sins” or, in some cases, doctors. Finally, they take action. Then they have to contend with the aftermath of both the infections and the finger-pointing -- the life-and-death consequences for themselves and their neighbors. . . .

It’s about history and culture and politics and even just about how people love and care for others in their family who are sick. And to reduce it to something like ‘resistance’ that needs stamping out in a really militaristic, heavy-handed response — that’s the exact wrong way to go.” Only when we understand these tendencies, she and other scholars say, can we navigate them. . . .

Indeed. Now you know -- and. . . also now, back in a Canadian wildfire smoke-tinted Chi-, this morning -- the sky is decidedly yellow, and breathing the air without a mask. . . delivers a sore throat within ten minutes. Ugh. But onward, just the same.

नमस्ते