Panic attack

Gov. Brian Sandoval last week appointed a Nevada Ebola Virus advisory task force. It was scheduled to hold its first meeting this week, by north/south teleconference. There is apparently no budget for the group. The task force is advisory.

Meanwhile, Vox reported that the Consumer Product Safety Commission says 30 people die each year in run-ins with their furniture, making household furniture a greater threat to life in the United States than the Ebola virus.

In a YouGov survey of 1,000 US adults interviewed October 15-16, 2014, 45 percent said they considered flu a more serious threat than Ebola. Forty percent named Ebola as the more serious.

A Washoe County Health Department statement reads in part, “People should remain calm. Ebola is not airborne and cannot be passed that way. It requires immediate contact with an Ebola victim, or body fluids. Because influenza symptoms are similar to Ebola symptoms, the more people [who] get a flu shot and reduce their chance of catching the flu, the fewer people will be reporting flu symptoms and causing potential strain on our healthcare system and possible concerns about Ebola. In the U.S., we've had one Ebola death and two additional cases, but every year tens of thousands of people die from flu or complications due to the flu. There is no vaccine for Ebola, but there is for flu.”

A report last month by Passport Health said that Nevada has the worst vaccination rate in the nation.