The line of reporting at YLE regarding the H1N1 here has been less than professional, and most of the news are meant to be scary. YLE isn't a company seeking advertising for profit and it should maintain a higher standard, but much like our yellow press (yesterday's headline was "People are dying in the queue" which wasn't even the case in the article, they just made the headline up) YLE's reporting has been getting more and more panic mongering and worthless.
The most recent article online is just a collection of scary stories from patients who have suffered H1N1. Just a bunch of short stories about symptoms, worse symptoms, even worse doctor visits and mental problems. This is not news, and it most certainly isn't the right way to talk about a disease which so far had failed to meet any prediction of infection rates or fatalities.
The problem lies in that the swine flu reporting has been getting gradually worse and now we are far, far from any real reporting without noticing any drastic changes in between.
If you read Finnish, take a look for yourself. The whole piece is meant to leave you feeling like there is a terrible disease looming with no help in sight. There's a wonderful short story of a pregnant woman who was prescribed Tamiflu and suffered from audible hallucinations and was isolated - it's just as scary as intended.
http://yle.fi/uutiset/kotimaa/2009/11/lukijat_kertovat_h1n1_nostaa_kovan_kuumeen_ja_tuntuu_lihaksissa_1165589.html?origin=rss
Finns just like a good scare. Most of the stories had great resemblance to my experience in Hong Kong hospital a few weeks ago and, for the record, I didn't have H1N1. Just a normal day at the hospital where most of Hong Kongs H1N1 cases are handled (or so I've heard).
ReplyDeleteI understand that while the health care system in Finland is in ok shape, many people don't really understand the dynamics of emergency wards under alert.
Yes, you have to wear masks and the staff will bitch about it to you if you don't. Yes, you have to wash hands and sterilize them and whatnot. And yes, you will have to wait for a while because there are other people to attend too. Etc. The system and the staff are not in a panic nor a state of chaos even if it would look like it. It is just an extraordinary situation and different measures are taken. And some things are not done urgently because there is no urgency //'Oh why didn't they start vaccinating people earlier?! We are dying here! We're all going to die!!'//. Period.
Oh, and yes.. If you do get H1N1, you probably will get some symptoms. However, it is not a fatal disease in vast majority of cases. It's stronger than seasonal flu, yes perhaps, but most likely you'll survive (even if you have strong symptoms). We were all given a decent heads-up already when H1N1 surfaced, and already then plenty of medical experts were saying it's not going to be a terrible catastrophe of biblical proportions.
Sure at the beginning governments and officials needed to make sure - and that's why we had that quarantine incident in Hong Kong, for example, with the hotel full of visitors being stuck there for a week.
But after the dust settled, it was clear that H1N1 would not be the end of the world, and mostly it's not really something to worry about.
Can't really see what the fuss is about now in Finland though. Even my mom asks me every time we talk on the phone whether there's a nation-wide vaccination program in Hong Kong and if I'm going to get myself vaccinated. The answer to those questions are: "no" and "maybe, if it's free".
Playing down the virus doesn't take away the pain of those who have and will lose loved ones to the virus, but tons of people get killed by the seasonal flu as well and nobody makes a big fuss about that.
I just think Finns like a good scare. Life is too good, even with the financial crisis and whatnot. Life is too good, and there's nothing like a microscopic mega-danger that even the proud Finnish Defense Force can't repel.
We all might die some day. It's a scary though.
Excellent point from OP. "This is not news" sums it up pretty nicely.
ReplyDeleteOne of the best comments I've heard about swine flu came today in school; a Finnish guy said during Human Resource Management lectures, totally out of the blue: "I want to beat up everyone who has swine flu."