April 28, 2009 Swine Flu Update: A dose of cynicism...or two

Want to know when the next update is life? Follow insidmex.com on Twitter! 

Here is the lastest news gathered from local and international media (scroll down for analysis):

The update:

• Schools are closed nationwide in Mexico today. More than 33 million students and 2 million teachers will be staying home until at least May 6. In Mexico City, you realize just how much traffic is created by shuttling young ones to and from their classes. When school´s out cars move much more smoothly along the city streets.
• CNN got Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard for an interview and used a two second clip of him saying he was ¨very worried.¨ That seemed a bit insulting to this viewer. If you are going to interview the Mayor of one of the biggest cities in the world during a crisis, don´t you give him a bit more time?
• Restaurants in Mexico City are only supposed to sell carry-out food. However, people are sitting in restaurants in the Condesa as I type.
• More than one hundred thousand kits test kits will arrive in Mexico over the next couple of days, allowing more people to be tested more quickly for the disease.
• Apparently, this flu weakens the respiratory system, which, in the more serious cases, can lead to pneumonia. Almost 2,000 people in Mexico have been hospitalized for serious pneumonia, perhaps, related to swine flu. The government here says 149 have died. The New York Times is reporting that the number of deaths in Mexico ¨attributable¨ to swine flu may be as high as 152.
• Cases have been confirmed in Spain, the UK and South Corea. As many as 40 cases are now confirmed in the United States and 6 in Canada.
• Japan has stopped giving visas to Mexicans who arrive in the country without one and they are checking passengers originating in Mexico, US and Canada.
• Perote, Veracruz. Is this where it all started? According to eluniversal.com.mx as many as 500 people suffered respiratory illnesses there between December of last year and March of this year. Mexico´s Health Minister, says that the first case of swine flu in Mexico was of a five year old boy from Perote. Apparently, a major industry in Perote is pig farming. However, the Governor of Veracruz, Fidel Herrera, insists that the flu came from Asia, via the US and into Mexico. In other words, he doesn´t want people to blame Veracruz!
• Two people in Scotland, who were honeymooning in Cancun, returned home with the flu. This is not a good sign for the Mexico tourism industry, if the flu is being contracted in the country´s biggest tourist location.
• See this public service ad on Youtube.com from 1976 when there was a swine flu scare in the United States. Apparently, during this outbreak, one person died of the flu and twenty-five died from the vaccination.

The analysis:

As we begin day five of the swine flu alert, two camps of cynicism are gathering.

The first is captured elegantly by an acquaintance (and the publisher of the Mexico based website narconews.com) in his Facebook update: ¨the media is ´One Flu Over the Cuckoo´s Nest´¨.

A number of Insidemex.com readers have written us to say that they believe  that the flu story is "overblown", a "media circus"," too much hype".  Why, the argument goes, are we spending so much time talking about a disease that has killed fewer than 200 people when the normal flu kills more than 30,000 a year just in the US ?

There is wariness of the 24 hour media cycle and of what might be called alert fatigue. Remember yellow, orange and red?

The second camp of cynicism is more disturbing. The BBC has posted comments on their website from health care professionals who believe that the impact of the flu is being underreported; that the number of illnesses and deaths are higher than what is appearing in the news; that Mexico is far less prepared for this than it should be. Rumors are circulating that the situation is far from under control, some of these rumors leaking from prominent research institutions.

The overriding point seems to be that there are still many unknowns. As the initial impact of the story  fades, people are tempted to shrug it off. However, without full information, we can't dismiss completely a pretty grim scenario (though it will not be easy for a flu to reach major pandemic proportions in this day and age).

The climbing alert levels seem to reflect as much the uncertainty of the situation as the scientific fact that that swine flu can be passed between people.  

On a side note, the current prevailing meta-discussion in the media is about Twitter (NYT). In other words, does Twitter provoke unnecessary panic or help people stay informed? Anderson Copper raised this question on CNN last night. Then he asked people to ¨tweet¨ their responses. Hmmm.