bird flu from asia?

[cacophony]

Originally Posted by Rog

my sentiments exactly mate!. half the people in the uk who have contracted this deadly virus are out of hospital and saying it was like a heavy cold. A bit of a warning would have been enough instead of the massive fuckin media overkill we are presently experiencing.
maybe in a few years when we really do have something serious happening then everyone will be like 'yeah yeah....we've heard it all before' and we'll all die.....'the media who cried wolf'?

in the first week of discovery there was no way to know whether this would be a supervirus or a bad cold. as i already described, the mode and speed of transmission was justifiably alarming to health professionals.

i guess what i dislike is using "cry wolf" to describe this situation. in the original fable the boy DELIBERATELY cried wolf in order to stir up a frenzy. thus teaching his community that he was a deliberate liar.

in the case of emergency alerts, like virus outbreaks or potentially catastrophic weather, no one is deliberately lying in order to stir up chaos. officials justifiably raise the alert because these things aren't perfectly predictable. we lack the ability to tell the future with precision so yes, sometimes the warning call will go out and nothing bad will manifest.

that doesn't make the warning system unjustified. it's not crying wolf.

crying wolf was saying "there's a link between iraq and 9/11. let's go get 'em!" warning the public about a potential health hazard is not.

[Rog]

Originally Posted by cacophony

in the first week of discovery there was no way to know whether this would be a supervirus or a bad cold. as i already described, the mode and speed of transmission was justifiably alarming to health professionals.

i guess what i dislike is using "cry wolf" to describe this situation. in the original fable the boy DELIBERATELY cried wolf in order to stir up a frenzy. thus teaching his community that he was a deliberate liar.

.

i agree with the first paragraph.....health professionals being the operative words.

but the media have deliberately stirred up an unwarranted frenzy and even if they aint guilty of lying then they are guilty of deliberately distorting the situation.

[cacophony]

i'm not going to disagree with that.