The 2014 ebola outbreak is, I think, really, the closest we’ve come to this kind of true fear (since 1918) of a fast-acting deadly illness, capable of killing w

The 2014 ebola outbreak is, I think, really, the closest we’ve come to this kind of true fear (since 1918) of a fast-acting deadly illness, capable of killing within days, and frighteningly accidentally infectious. I can’t speak to much of anything happening outside the U.S. prior to 1970, but if I’ve ever experienced anything that seems like a reasonable pairing with the 1918 pandemic, that’s the only thing that comes to mind. I remember the news of it emerging in just a few weeks, and hearing level-headed people commenting that this thing seemed to be turning into “quite a thing” and when reasonable people raise an eyebrow, it really magnifies the gravity of an anxiety that just immerses you in this sort of fatiguing alertness, to say the least. You’re excited, but at a time when there’s no urgency to act, and you wonder if that might be your last error: failing to recognize what that all-important warning sign was to be, or was supposed to have been. Is it time to panic yet? How will I know if it is? The flu is just this typical sort of seasonal thing, for as long as I’ve been alive. But I imagine what the ebola outbreak felt like, is a stone’s throw from what the 1918 pandemic really became in the sense of a social atmosphere worthy of the fear it produced.