Terrifying constituents with dire warnings
The Flu. Who Knew?
By GAIL COLLINS, NYT
Everybody is talking about the flu. Never have I seen so many people trying to open doorknobs with their elbows. “Epidemic spurs rush to hospitals,” announced The New York Post under a “Flu York” front-page headline. A financial Web site offered a list of undervalued stocks in the funeral service industry. The mayor of Boston declared a public health emergency. Google Flu Trends painted a map of the country in deep red and inspired a raft of terrifying predictions. (“Outbreak could be the worst on record.”)
It’s hard to tell the extent of a flu outbreak because most of the victims just snivel away unhappily in the privacy of their own homes. The Google site solves this problem by tracking the number of times people search for flu-related terms online. Does this make sense to you, people? If we could determine what was going on in the world by the most popular searches, wouldn’t the universe be run by mischievous kittens and Kate Middleton?
O.K., that is not a sophisticated thought — Google has an algorithm. But I still wonder if the number of recent searches on the subject of flu isn’t related to the number of recent press conferences about flu. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls Google Flu Trends “a useful tool” that may be “subject to the perturbations of media attention.”
It’s hard for the media, or the elected officials who are currently terrifying their constituents with dire flu warnings, to know where to draw the line between encouraging preparedness and scaring the public out of its wits. The flu is incredibly debilitating, especially this year because it’s showing up at the same time as a stomach virus that features diarrhea and projectile vomiting. Truly, you only need to mention “projectile vomiting” once to get our attention. And flu can be dangerous for some people, like the frail elderly.
(More here.)
Everybody is talking about the flu. Never have I seen so many people trying to open doorknobs with their elbows. “Epidemic spurs rush to hospitals,” announced The New York Post under a “Flu York” front-page headline. A financial Web site offered a list of undervalued stocks in the funeral service industry. The mayor of Boston declared a public health emergency. Google Flu Trends painted a map of the country in deep red and inspired a raft of terrifying predictions. (“Outbreak could be the worst on record.”)
It’s hard to tell the extent of a flu outbreak because most of the victims just snivel away unhappily in the privacy of their own homes. The Google site solves this problem by tracking the number of times people search for flu-related terms online. Does this make sense to you, people? If we could determine what was going on in the world by the most popular searches, wouldn’t the universe be run by mischievous kittens and Kate Middleton?
O.K., that is not a sophisticated thought — Google has an algorithm. But I still wonder if the number of recent searches on the subject of flu isn’t related to the number of recent press conferences about flu. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls Google Flu Trends “a useful tool” that may be “subject to the perturbations of media attention.”
It’s hard for the media, or the elected officials who are currently terrifying their constituents with dire flu warnings, to know where to draw the line between encouraging preparedness and scaring the public out of its wits. The flu is incredibly debilitating, especially this year because it’s showing up at the same time as a stomach virus that features diarrhea and projectile vomiting. Truly, you only need to mention “projectile vomiting” once to get our attention. And flu can be dangerous for some people, like the frail elderly.
(More here.)
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