How afraid should we be?

We’re still deciding how afraid to be of Ebola.

In Liberia, where about 2,500 have died, Major General Darryl Williams is overseeing the U.S. Army’s medical rescue operation, and he found that even at the epicenter of the outbreak, life goes on.

“This country is not hunkered down from this dreadful disease,” said Williams. “As I drive around, fly around with the ambassador and others, there’s vitality here. Folks are going about their daily lives are very, very resilient.”

The important thing, as Williams told the assembled reporters, listening from a safe distance at the Pentagon, is to follow the rules.

“It’s discipline,” he said. “Every day, in the morning with my breakfast, I take a malaria pill. That’s my biggest concern. I wash my hands a lot with chlorine. We don’t shake hands. We keep our distance.”

And your body temperature is everybody’s business.

“Yesterday, I think I had my temperature taken eight times before I got on and off an aircraft, before I went in and out of the embassy,” said Williams.

So his message, as someone right in the middle of it, is don’t freak out. Compared to the 2009 flu pandemic that killed 12,469 people in the U.S., this is nothing. But numbers don’t matter when you’re seeing nurses in hazmat suits.

The flu we understand. Ebola, we don’t.