The fear of Ebola has spread faster in America than the virus itself. Ebola has infected the American psyche, forcing us to do risk analysis of a pathogen we know little about. This is different from the flu scares of recent years, because this virus is novel here, and we have no cultural memory of what we are supposed to do, or think, or believe, when Ebola is on the loose. However, there’s a reason it’s not everywhere in the U.S. yet and that’s because it’s not as easy to transmit as believed. In theory, a single virus particle — a virion — is capable of being infectious and, after replicating billions of times, killing the host. That makes Ebola unusually infectious and virulent. But that’s not the same thing as contagious. Thomas Geisbert at UTMB discusses how the Ebola virus increases as the disease progresses, which is why a person infected but without symptoms will not spread the virus initially since there’s still little virus present within their body. Ebola in humans is spread only through direct contact with virus-laden bodily fluids, and is not as transmissible as such airborne viruses as influenza and measles.