I never wanted to upset anyone when I posted regarding what started out being called Swine Flu, and is now being called Influenza A. But I did want to highlight the irresponsible and irrational reporting of what is a serious subject.
When the news first broke here in Britain it was reported that there had been a hundred and fifty deaths of healthy adults. But by the end of that first day, the news programmes that I get as pod casts were adjusting the reporting and being less irrational and the reports were less alarming. This was because the journalists were checking the facts. However, the newspapers here and media across the world were stoking it up by the following day.
Without repeating myself, almost all of the details in those initial reports were grossly inaccurate While any influenza is serious, it really did look as though the press were just making up facts to match an editorial line. That is not reporting that is propaganda.
At least it seems that now the true facts are emerging that the media is now calming down. I am genuinely sorry that a couple of my readers felt that I was being critical of them personally, I was not. If you or me are given incorrect or inaccurate information we make choices that based on that knowledge.
I have a hope though that people will improve their hygiene as a result of this. Even today I saw one old lady slap a lad of eighteen or nineteen for spitting as well as giving him a good telling off.
But as this flu may have come from a porcine source, I don't think that we need to worry as pigs are intelligent animals and they are probably working on a vaccine already.
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1 comment:
I apologize for jumping on you, as I have not heard what your media is reporting, which, as you have said, was what your post was really about.
There has been a large discrepancy in figures between separate countries reports and WHO figures-even state CDC's here have found H1N1 but they are only listed as probable until verified by our country's CDC lab. Our state had reported three on Wednesday, and as of yesterday they were listed as only probable and the state was not listed on the Nat'l CDC.
One of the labs had said they could only process 100 samples a day(whether state, nat'l or WHO I can't recall)so there is a time lag.
I have read 12 "confirmed" deaths in Mexico-with over 200 suspected, but as you suggest the actual ill could be very high, lowering the fatality rate.
The media initially might have been reporting Mexico's figures, while WHO has not confirmed those...so even those of us who are monitoring our nat'l CDC and WHO websites have difficulty getting a clear picture.
PS I forwarded you a pic I had in my email today-was not sure if I could post to my blog or not(?) but it was funny /gross about swine flu.
(still friends?? :D )
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