In the wake of two nurses contracting the Ebola virus from Thomas Duncan in Dallas, Ebola news coverage has contributed to a fear of the virus spreading in the U.S.

While fears of the virus spreading are not completely irrational, it is important to keep other more real threats in mind and not let panic cloud judgment, said Graham Dixon, Ph.D and associate professor of risk communication at WSU.

Dixon said even though experts have denounced Ebola’s threat to the U.S., media coverage of more Americans becoming infected has raised concerns with the public.

Such concerns have resulted in unnecessary precautions, such as the lab technician who locked himself in his room on a cruise ship simply because he had handled samples from the patient who died in Dallas.

These concerns stem from an inherent dread of the unknown, as well as a lack of control and understanding, Dixon said.

“I think it’s better for us to put things in perspective… No one’s afraid of heart disease, which is much more dangerous in reality,” Dixon said.

For Ebola to spread in America as it has in Africa, there would have to be a large amount of unidentified cases, said Registered Nurse Connie Koal, infection control specialist at Pullman Regional Hospital.

Koal said the Center for Disease Control has asked health care facilities around the country to develop an action plan should they ever take in an Ebola patient, a move which already puts the U.S. a step ahead of countries like Liberia, where the virus currently runs rampant due to strategic shortcomings. However, having an action plan does not mean hospitals are expecting an epidemic.

In order to quell the hysteria caused by Ebola, the media needs to focus on the positive news, Koal said.

She said the media needs to show the public how the nurses from Dallas recovered, rather than how many people may have contracted the virus from them.

The Ebola media frenzy has created cover for politicians to push their own agendas, said Doug Hindman, associate professor of journalism.

Lawmakers have been pushing to seal the U.S.-Mexican border in order to stop the spread of Ebola, which has not appeared in Mexico yet, at a time when border and immigration control remains high on the governmental hot-list.

“It has nothing to do with science or medicine,” Hindman said, “it’s all about ‘what helps me?’”

While the majority of American Ebola coverage is on cases in the U.S., cases overseas in less developed countries are for more threatening.

“We need to separate Ebola in Africa from Ebola in the U.S.,” Koal said. “We are much better equipped to handle the virus.”