Swine Flu Panic Escalated by Media Jeremy Davis The News Record Published: Wednesday, May 6, 2009 If you’ve paid any attention to the media over the last week, your mind may have experienced a swine flu saturation, thanks in part to the brutal blitz of everything swine-flu related. Through the rash of media coverage and government statements, the recent outbreak of the H1N1 influenza virus has caused a worldwide panic and has prompted swift action by a number of countries to prevent spreading. On Monday, the director-general of the World Health Organization stated that it may raise its flu alert to level six, declaring the swine flu outbreak an official worldwide pandemic. President Obama responded to the crisis by simply saying that people should stay home from school or work if they are sick, wash their hands frequently and generally just take simple precautions. Although much of the initial mania has subsided by now with many government officials and doctors stating that the current strain of influenza is no stronger than the regular seasonal flu, many still warn of a possible return of an even stronger influenza outbreak that could arise later this year. There’s no doubt in the potential seriousness of such an outbreak, but at the same time, we need to put these kinds of events in perspective. Influenza typically kills around 36,000 people every year in this country and hospitalizes thousands more. Infectious diseases kill a massively untold amount of people in Africa each day. And so by comparison, the initial reports of the swine flu seem to have been grossly overstretched. “So far there are only a handful of confirmed deaths attributable to this strain, and most of those sickened have or will fully recover. Every death is tragic, but I see no reason to deal with this flu outbreak any differently than we typically deal with any other flu season,” said Rep. Ron Paul, who is also a doctor, in his weekly column, Texas Straight Talk. “Instead, government, in its infinite wisdom, is performing even more invasive screening at airports, closing down schools and sporting events and causing general panic.” While many see these actions as cautionary steps meant to prevent spreading, others view them as an overreaction to an event that may potentially be less severe than initially represented to be. And while the rapid spread of any disease around the country or the world is a serious and important matter, reducing panic is equally important. The media has once again displayed its ability to create an over-hyped crisis out of something that shouldn’t have been. It’s nice that the media did their job and informed us all on the possible threat; however, it’s unfortunate that the way in which it was reported resulted in inciting certain panic in many rightfully concerned people. Unfortunately, media-generated delirium surrounding the swine flu seemed to have spread a lot faster than the dreaded flu itself. The swine flu was provided with all the comforts of a relentless 24-hour news cycle by the always over-dramatic news media, providing no means of escape should you decide to watch the news. Countless news programs provided us with so-called health experts who claimed that this could be an epidemic, pandemic or whatever, that could potentially affect millions of people. While at the same time, they were telling us that they don’t want to panic anybody. Right. We were constantly being shown people walking around streets wearing medical masks. Some commentators suggested that we avoid large crowds or confined spaces with lots of people and we were being told to wash our hands frequently. How are people not going to get overly concerned? And so we are presented with this new crisis of the month in which we are left with determining what is important or not, based on a media that loves to generate hype. With an uncertain outlook on how serious this or future outbreaks could get, it’s crucial that we remain level-headed and calm because as history has shown, the rapid spread of panic tends to always make bad situations much worse. |
'Need for perspective' on swine flu By Roger Harrabin Environment analyst, BBC News Modern society is wobbly around "risk". The same newspaper editors who pillory head teachers for banning conkers are swift to castigate the authorities for any "avoidable" death. So it is perhaps understandable that people in the firing line of blame sometimes take a precautionary approach that can look like an over-reaction. On swine flu we have had earnest re-assurances from President Obama and Gordon Brown that all necessary precautions are in place and that the response is proportionate to the threat. But it's hard to tell a proportionate response if your risks are hard or impossible to quantify. In 1990 came the scare over vCJD from beef. We were warned that thousands of people might die. And tens of thousands of cows were destroyed to stop the spread of BSE - the bovine version of vCJD. The final death toll from vCJD stands at 164. In 2002 we had a global panic about Sars - a disease described in parts of the media as probably worse than Aids. It caused 774 deaths worldwide. In the flap over bird flu in 2006 we were told that one in four Britons might die. In fact the global death toll was 257. Policy actions What we can't know in any of these cases is how much precautionary action by the authorities mitigated the health risk, or whether the health professionals were crying wolf. Policy-makers... are damned if they do and damned if they don't And we cannot know how far media hype contributed to policy-makers' zealotry actions. The virologist John Oxford, for instance, was berated on BBC Radio 4's Today programme by columnist Simon Jenkins for describing a swine flu "Armageddon". He replied that he had been asked by a journalist to speculate on an Armageddon scenario - which is what he did. He went on to say that swine flu was probably being beaten, and that he was more worried about on-going bird flu. It is a fact that crises sell newspapers and increase TV audiences. Media headlines To put the scares in perspective, about half-a-million people die from common flus in an average year. More than a million die on the roads. But governments are often more easily moved to tackle a short-term crisis than a long-term crisis, and on-going situations like road deaths don't register as news. Take the two risks identified by the physicist Stephen Hawking as the biggest threats to humankind - climate change and a GM virus modified by terrorists with no human immune response. On climate the world's politicians are failing to mitigate the risk as described by scientists. On the GM terror, there may be little biologically they can do. Policy-makers goaded by media headlines in the current flu outbreak are faced with one uncomfortable certainty as they ponder future precautions - they are damned if they do and damned if they don't. |
| Swine flu panic worldwide leads to violence against pigs By Larry Mcshane DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Sunday, May 3rd 2009, 5:58 AM The swine flu claimed more innocent victims Saturday - pigs misguidedly butchered in Cairo and Baghdad. Anxious officials ordered the porcine purges despite the World Health Organization's denials of any link between the virus and the world's pig population. Three wild pigs at the Baghdad Zoo were slaughtered over concerns that the virus could spread into Iraq. No disease has been reported in the country. "We received an order, issued by the multiministry committee aimed at preventing swine flu, to kill the three pigs," said zoo director Adel Salman Musa. In Egypt, officials killed 550 animals Saturday, the first step in wiping out the country's pig population. Officials plan to kill all 250,000 existing Egyptian pigs. Angry farmers north of Cairo threw rocks at Egyptian veterinary officials who came to cull their pigs earlier in the week. The owners can keep the pork, which will be stored in freezers once tests show it's disease-free. Meanwhile, about 200 pigs on a Canadian farm have also been infected with the virus, apparently by a farm worker who returned from Mexico. They were placed under quarantine. There was good news for all surviving pigs: The WHO plans to start referring to the virus by its scientific name, H1N1 influenza A. |
My Reaction: Panic caused by the media can lead to a false alarm such as killing innocent pigs
1) The world now has encountered the outbreak of swine flu which has become a pandemic.
2) The virus was first found in Mexico which has already caused many deaths, and thousands of people worldwide are still being suspected.
3) Media has a really big influence on most people.
4) Media has been spreading panic about the virus to many people worldwide. It has caused many people killing innocent pigs due to the misinformation.
5) It is the media’s responsibility to be aware of the message they send to people.
6) Too much information can also cause panic.
7) The best way for us now is to stay calm. Because panic might make everything even worse.
8) Even there’s not yet been a right vaccine for the virus, but from the past experience, we should realize that there is nothing that we can’t do. It just takes time to discover it. So, stop being panic!
Conclusion:
The world now has been facing a new type of pig-originated flu, which was at first named as “Swine flu”. Usually, it is the media’s responsibility to inform people of what is going on . Consequently, consuming news is a double-edged sword that can be both positive and negative.
From the swine flu case, some media have so far shown too much information, which in return has created the state of “panic” to most people. Some of them are now over-frightened. And in some countries such as Egypt, people even killed lots of innocent pigs, although there’s not yet been a report on a swine flu case in their countries.
Or sometimes the media even disseminate the news by not fully considering the negative effects that might follow. For instance, the use of the name “Swine flu” which has turned the pork industry to face a new crisis that is an anti-eating pork.
And as usual, we were shown tons of pigs being slaughtered. We were shown many suspected people being grounded strictly. And we were even shown people wearing awful mask which is like we are in the middle of a virus war. So, from all of this, how could us, who is just a news consumer, avoid the state of panic that was always created by the media?
It is true that the virus already killed nearly 30 people, and has contracted many others. And there has not yet been a right vaccine to cure it (in these few months). But, as far as we’ve learnt from our experiences over the past decade, we shouldn’t be too frightened of something that no one actually knows what’s going to happen. From the bird flu incident in 2006, we were told that the total death might reach the incredibly high number, but at last the total death toll is just 257.
I think we cannot specifically blame anyone on this panic situation. But now, the best thing we can do is to stay calm (no matter how intense the news is). Because too much panic is very dangerous, it can make you end up being paranoid, and can lead you to a false alarm. Inversely, for the media, in stead of focusing only on a short-term crisis such as this outbreak, they should focus more on the long-term crisis such as the deaths of people from common flu which actually reaches up to half a million each year.
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I personally think it's a strategy to gain attention from the news consumers.
People usually trust what they see on the media, especially when it is presented by big name news agency.
When we catch the headlines of the Swine Flu, I think nobody can help feeling panic, seeing it's a disease that could actually kill.
I just hope they will be more responsible about what they publish to the public--no exaggerated headlines, no deceiving consumers into false understanding; so no more poor innocent pigs will get killed for no good reason! ;)
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