Am I the only who's noticed that there is always one and exactly one major disease of which we should all be mortally afraid?
Or would you rather a modern Spanish flu pandemic kill half a billion people?
That's asinine. As if the choices are panicked fear or death. Do you think those public health agencies would be somehow less effective in the absence of fear-mongering?
My comment is not a question of there being public health threats. It's about the media coverage and the incessant need to sell fear in these times.
Yes, as any public health official will attest, public health policy happens best in a climate of unbridled fear and panic.
Time to go play Plague, Inc, again...
Edit:
Actually the NYT article is quite nice in evaluating the risk and giving information about the danger zones.
But most probably all those viruses/microbes required public attention to get required funding to stop and confine them.
How is it that people who are sensible about energy policy suddenly turn into conspiracy theorists when it comes to public health policy? This guy isn't making any radical proposals. He's just suggesting a sensible mosquito abatement strategy in a particular part of the US where it makes sense.
Sensibly suggesting it with the foreboding headline "Zika Is Coming"?
And, this, in the context of the fear that is already being ginned up about the virus.
I don't know that it's a conspiracy, but it's pretty predictable by now: "This New Virus Will Kill Us All" headlines. Story after story, then the fizzle when fears prove to be overstated.
So, just as suddenly, the headlines completely disappear. Ebola headlines stopped literally overnight from just about every media outlet.
But, within a few months another mortal fear arises. You can set your watch to it.
Ebola didn't disappear on its own. It was sound containment policy that kept it from gaining a foothold in developed countries. Exactly the kind of sound policy that the author is advocating.
Your line of thinking is what makes measles come back.
>Ebola didn't disappear on its own
But it would have equally disappeared without the minor panic incited by the media. You remember that part too, don't you?
>Your line of thinking is what makes measles come back
Oh, the drama. I don't think my weariness of the fear mongering is going to bring back the Black Death. No, my ,"line of thinking" says let public health officials do their jobs without this incessant advertising-selling drumbeat regarding our collective impending doom.
But it's OK. Give me your address and I will bring my 8 unvaccinated kids and their unvaccinated goldfish to your house to hang out for a bit. Apologies in advance for your exploding head.
Thankfully, Google is there when our memories falter.
And you should thank the physician who caught that Patrick Sawyer fellow in time. Ebola in Lagos would have been catastrophic.
1. The media-incited fear must be equally allocated to old, common as well as new threats
2. The tabloid type of fear mongering isn't needed.
Actually the NYT article is quite serious and informative, the headline which is similar to "winter coming" asks for preparations.
Mark your calendar for a year from today. Two years at most. I all but guarantee you that Zika won't be in the headlines then, but another Scary Ass Microbe will be.