The newspaper’s editorial observation that the overreaction to the Ebola situation in the United States (“State response to Ebola fear lacked real information,” Nov. 2) raises concern about whether our nation will be able to cope with a bona fide crisis is absolutely correct, but it might have been more forceful in its explanation about why this current situation is fairly minor.

Not to say that Ebola isn’t a nasty virus for those who contract it. In Third World Africa with rudimentary care, the death rate is 50 percent to 80 percent. And a few volunteers taking care of these poor souls as they bleed and lose control of their bodily functions have been contaminated, gotten sick and even died. Overall, however, the risk of contagion needs perspective.

Even in rural villages in Africa, entire populations haven’t been wiped out, as if this was a plague or even the flu. In fact, we see touching stories of volunteers who build shelters for orphaned children whose parents died of Ebola. Think about that. These kids were living in the same rooms with people who got Ebola, but they are healthy. The virus didn’t leap out and bite them.

Closer to home, the late Eric Duncan tragically became sick after he arrived in Dallas. No one he flew with got sick. He lived with several people in a small apartment for nearly a week while he was incubating the disease and even after he was sick. None became ill. Dozens of others were exposed. No illness.

About 75 people at Presbyterian Hospital interacted with him. Only two nurses who provided active care acquired the infection, because of an as-yet-unexplained breach of precautions. Fortunately, their illnesses were mild and they recovered. None of their contacts has become ill.

Health workers in New York, Dallas, Omaha, Atlanta and Bethesda care for patients in their job and then live their personal lives, monitoring and reporting. Dr. Anthony Fauci, who was involved in the care of a patient at NIH, goes to meetings at the White House. Dozens of people, hundreds of casual contacts. No disease.

There is a simple explanation. Although viruses, including the cold, flu or the currently deadly enterovirus-68, are spread by respiratory droplets through coughs and sneezes, Ebola is more like hepatitis and HIV. Bodily fluids containing live viruses must contaminate the skin or membranes and enter the body through a break in the surface. The best predictor of how severe an illness a person might get is how much volume of high virus count he is contaminated with.

Even if a person has actually acquired the virus into his body, if he is not sick, he does not have significant amount of virus circulating to spread it to someone else. He won’t shed viruses onto surfaces where someone can come along and absorb them.

The disease that will do that is influenza, via coughs and sneezes. Flu will make millions of us sick and will kill thousands of Americans. We need to be allocating resources to encourage people to get their flu shots. That will save lives.

And we should honor Kaci Hickox and pray that the remaining weeks of her self-monitoring period are peaceful and healthy.

Stephen S. Entman of Newcastle is a retired physician who lives in Maine about half the year.