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Just loose three letters
?Some readers might be wondering why The Cosmos has carried no items in recent weeks concerning the H1N1 or swine 'flu virus.
There are a number of reasons.
Firstly, there has been, to the best of our knowledge, no major outbreak of the disease in our community. To be sure, we know of a number of people who have contracted what appear to be 'flu-like symptoms, but they have all been rather mild: the sort of 'flu many of us experience from time to time.
Secondly, when an H1N1 vaccination clinic was set up on Toronto Street South, there was a line-up of sorts, but nothing comparable to the hours-long waits experienced in many of Canada's major cities.
And thirdly, the national media have covered the H1N1 story ad nauseum. Indeed, anyone concerned about the virus isn't likely to wait a week for the latest edition of The Cosmos to hit the streets. They will turn on television, go to the Internet or purchase one of the major dailies.
But it is the national media, in our opinion, who have done a major disservice to the Canadian public. They have taken the word “pandemic,” discarded three little letters in that word and turned the whole thing into panic.
There are many examples, but one that stands out is the news coverage of the death of a 13-year-old boy in the GTA. Obviously, no one wants to see a young lad cut down by an infectious disease at such a tender age and we can all understand the grief that his family feels. But to turn that death - and his subsequent funeral - into the lead story on national television newscasts and make it front-page headlines across the country is, we feel, irresponsible. Such coverage can only lead to uncertainty – and, indeed, panic – in the general populace.
The latest figures we have heard indicate perhaps about 150 people have died of H1N1 complications across the country. That's 150 in a nation of more than 30 million people. Seasonal ‘flu contributes to hundreds of deaths in Canada every year.
Then there were stories about the alleged unpreparedness of Canada's public health system to deal with the pandemic, the inability of the drug company to provide enough vaccine in a timely fashion and much-hyped stories about hockey teams jumping the queue. We don’t necessarily disagree with the media approaching these issue, but we feel the manner in which they did it only l fed the fears they had already created.
Watching the news coverage, the average citizen could be forgiven for jumping to the conclusion that all Hell was about to break loose.
The H1N1 virus is still out there and vaccinations are still being administered, but you’ll find little mention of it now. Why? Because the media have a relatively short attention span and there’s always another major story to jump on.
We believe it is the responsibility of the media to report the facts on any situation in a calm and measured way so that the public can take those facts and come to their own conclusions..
