Opus 2014-253: Headlines: Scared Yet?

It is hard to tell if we are stepping into a new Black Death or just trying to sell air-time.

You can’t go to a news source without seeing headlines about Ebola or a mystery virus.  People are sick.  People are dying.  It is spreading.  Is it serious?  Yes.  Is it a crisis?  I am not panicked.  I am not extremely worried.  I am aware and concerned. 

The main concern I have is the lack of good reporting and the dearth of facts.  All the articles seem to be doing is recycling the same boilerplate as the competition.  Some of this is because the reporters are lazy and incompetent.  Some of this is because the agencies are lying, deflecting and hiding. 

“If it bleeds, it leads.”  If it doesn’t bleed, make the people think it will make them bleed.  Take the endless articles about the mysterious viruses killing people all over the country.  It isn’t a mystery virus.  It is a known quantity.  People have died.  Lately they are talking about a couple of adults.  What I am not reading is if these are the weak, already sick people, who would die if they caught a strong case of flu.  It is still a death and a personal tragedy for the families involved, but it isn’t a threat to life as we know it.

Remember the swine flu?  It was supposed to bring civilization to an end.  It turns out that the people who died from it were already close to the grave before it hit them.  Remember how HIV was supposed to rage through our neighborhoods bringing death and destruction?  It turns out that it is largely confined to the homosexual community.  Have you had people try to get you to be vaccinated for hepatitis B?  If you catch it you will think you have a cold or flu and move on.  Have you heard about the new disease being spread by mosquitos?  It produces a mild sickness in most people.  All real.  All hyped. 

The death rate is high in Africa from Ebola.  So far it isn’t coming close to the deaths by HIV and simple malaria.  Malaria killed an estimated 627,000 people last year as the World Health Organization reports and they add,

“People living in the poorest countries are the most vulnerable to malaria. In 2012, 90% of all malaria deaths occurred in the WHO African Region, mostly among children under 5 years of age.”

With HIV you are required to do the math yourself at the WHO sight.  It claims 1.6 million deaths from HIV in 2012 and says that 73% were in sub-Sahara Africa.  That comes out to 1,168,000 deaths in Africa from HIV.  How many of those dying from ebola also had HIV?  No one is talking.  I am not sure anyone is asking.

We are not Africa.  But Nigeria is and they seem to have a handle on it.  If you are panicking then check out this article from NPR.  Of course it is from NPR, so I don’t know how believable it is, but read it anyway.  The key seems to be that there was a quick and organized response.  In our country there is denial and heads in the sand.

Will be survive this latest example of Obama Administration incompetence?  Will we survive the criminal reporting by the news media?  The jury is still out.

homo unius libri