Avian Flu

By dave on January 30, 2006 2:35 PM | Permalink

There's been more news of dead H5N1 infected birds in Hong Kong. This brings the grand total of cases to two wild birds.

Remarkably, and quite unlike the SARS era and the recent WTO coverage, the media isn't attempting to whip things up into a panicked frenzy. Perhaps they've taken the large amount of criticism over the WTO reporting to heart. Or maybe they just haven't found a bio hazard suit to fit Emma Jones yet, like that silly stunt with the TVB reporter in the crash helmet at the WTO frontlines. (Tom Grundy, the guy in the chicken suit.)

Given the enormous impact of the whole SARS fiasco on the Hong Kong economy, I wonder would the news media jump on an Avian Flu bandwagon quite as quickly as they played up SARS? SARS turned out to be no more dangerous than any other form of pneumonia, but the WHO declared it a potential pandemic and we all know what happened then. I know people who sent their kids to distant relatives in other countries, or who left Hong Kong with the clothes on their backs, never to return. Meanwhile, several countries refused to accept travellers from infected countries, and there was a massive hit to Hong Kong's economy which we took years to recover from.

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