Reflexive anti-hype as bad as reflexive media hype

"Remain calm, all is well."

We're at Phase 5 on the World Health Organization's pandemic alert level. What does that mean? "Phase 5 is characterized by human-to-human spread of the virus into at least two countries in one WHO region. While most countries will not be affected at this stage, the declaration of Phase 5 is a strong signal that a pandemic is imminent and that the time to finalize the organization, communication, and implementation of the planned mitigation measures is short." Things are quickening around the world and especially the United States. Schools around the country are starting to shut down and it won't be long before we start seeing some commercial enterprises lose functionality.

All over the news, newspapers, and news websites we're treated to a constant barrage of images of people in masks and alarming headlines about panics and runs on stores. The press gets a bad rap in situations like this, and often deserves it. Many people have become so inured to the alarmist infotainment thrown out by the 24-hour cable channels that they reflexively and vociferously disbelieve whatever the media says about whatever is going to kill everybody this week.

That has been amply demonstrated in my own city this week as the emergency management coordinator, who is not part of the fire department, has been sending out the official City emails about the swine flu to the employees. Yesterday afternoon he said, among other things, that there was no epidemic and that no one should be alarmed because this was the same as any other flu. I believe that all his emails/memoranda to this point have specifically said the media is just trying to scare people and that we and our families should ignore them.

This is neither helpful nor factually correct. We are now to the point the WHO defines as "pandemic imminent" and schools in our immediate area are closing. We think we may have made the first swine flu-related EMS call in our jurisdiction yesterday and the City's memorandum-of-record, from last night, says essentially "move along, nothing to see here."

Sober and context-rich analysis is lacking in the media, but it is also lacking in these emails. Just because the media implies a bunch of people are going to die does not mean that quite a few people won't die. Antipathy toward the press has in this case turned preparedness on its head and, perversely, actively discourages people from planning and preparing for things to get worse. It was obvious then (this was last night) and is more obvious now that things are getting worse and will continue to do so for some time.

Most of the people who received those emails/memoranda are not firefighters or cops or paramedics, they are just regular people. Discouraging them from preparing is bad enough, but authoritatively telling police, fire, and EMS supervisors that the the threat is inflated and minimal is downright reckless.

It is always appropriate to strike a calm and reasoned tone, but it is also always appropriate to be honest and not allow our biases to unduly affect our conclusions. That includes biases against the media and the urge to show people your head is even more level than theirs.