Remember Ebola? Sure, we still hear about it once in a while, but it doesn’t scare us like did earlier in the year. A few months ago, the media had many of us convinced that America would turn into an Ebola-ridden wasteland. Although no Ebola outbreak has occurred in the United States, most Americans still believe that the public authorities are unable to protect us from this threat, according to previously unpublished research conducted the RIWI Corporation. In November, Gallup reported that “Ebola may not be the dominant news story it was a month ago, but it is still on the minds of Americans, 17% of whom cite it when asked to name the top health problem facing the U.S. Still, Gallup’s history of asking this question strongly suggests that without continued incidents of Americans catching the virus on U.S. soil, this flare of concern will be temporary.”

RIWI randomly intercepts people who are searching the Internet, which captures many respondents who have never participated in traditional surveys. RIWI reported two waves of the Ebola survey, conducted from September 16 to November 30 and December 1 to December 17. The early wave had 26,369 respondents (53.5 percent) opt in, the latter 4,984 (48.8 percent). It also located respondents in blue or red states, according to the results of the 2012 presidential election. Although no more than about one-third of respondents in either wave were quite scared or very scared of Ebola killing a large number of U.S. citizens, about half had no or little confidence that U.S. health agencies could protect them against an Ebola outbreak. These two (previously unpublished) bar charts show the breakdown between blue and red states.

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