Cognitive appraisal involves how we ask "Is this dangerous?" and "What can I do?"—questions that shape fear.

Memory of pandemics isn't neutral; we reconstruct the past to fit our present identity and beliefs.

CDC says Ebola risk is low, but whether you believe that depends on which pandemic memory you're running.

In 2014, I wrote in Fortune (see, Ebola: The dark side of globalization) that globalization had become intellectually obvious but emotionally undigested. People knew viruses could cross borders. They still felt protected by distance.

During COVID, I spent several years writing about pandemic aftermath and health technology. One lesson stayed with me: Disease does not only move through bodies. It moves through institutions, devices, dashboards, memories, and trust. A health threat becomes psychological when people can no longer tell whether the system around them can help them cope.

The psychologist Richard Lazarus called this cognitive appraisal: the process by which we evaluate what a situation means and whether we can handle it. First comes the question, often wordless: Is this dangerous to me? Then comes the second: What can I do? If you have any energy left, you might also ask, Why did this happen?

On the latter, there can be many answers. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) government bears responsibility, but is widely classified as a failed state. A rapidly growing population, land grabs to capture abundant mineral resources by elites, persistent armed conflict over decades, mass internal displacement, disease outbreaks, and deep poverty have taken their toll. The March 23 Movement, a heavily armed rebel group backed by Rwanda, accused of widespread war crimes,........

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