It's wise to prepare. Panicking and being prepared are two very different though overlapping behaviors. The part that 'bugs' (sorry) me the most lately is when someone claims certainty about Ebola's chances of spreading. It's un-scientific to speak with literal, absolute certainty in most contexts. The early guest on The Colbert Report last Thursday, for instance, was resolute in saying the chance of Ebola spreading in the United States is "zero." Attempting to balance against a flip-side of sensationalism is an inadequate excuse. Sure, memories of The Hot Zone panic are alive and well. That came and went. Too many factors are at play though. Anyone who states proof of "zero" seems to only play a fool or propagandist (unless the topic is mathematics).

Ebola is probably high on a list of threats in the form of plausible terrorism. I'll be glad to be wrong. There's no shortage of it to procure. It presumably can't be detected easily. It can survive numerous transatlantic mailings for cultivation. It has about a week delay in symptoms. Short bursts of it in dense populations where people eat/interact would cause huge catastrophe in panic alone. That's one factor. Hopefully, an increased response will thwart its growth altogether and we can again see it as "zero."