I’ve lived in country communities long enough to know that rumors spread like wildfire.
Some rumors are true, many are false. The media will ignore many, and some are too big to ignore.
Governments, organisations, businesses and individuals have three options when dealing with rumors: Confirm, deny or ignore.
Some should be ignored because they are too silly. Others must be answered because they are too serious.
Anyone who has worked in public relations, politics or the media should know how to handle rumors, but it never ceases to amaze me how often people get it wrong.
Today, a journalist asked the South Australian Health Department if it’s true that swine flu cases have been confirmed in Mount Gambier.
Yes or no, that’s all the journalist wanted to hear.
Admittedly a “yes” answer would have prompted some follow-up questions, while a straight “no” would have killed the story.
Instead, she was given the run-around and after multiple requests a brief written statement came long after deadline that failed to answer the question.
I can’t recall the exact words, but it was some mush about respecting the privacy of individuals.
The journalist didn’t ask who had swine flu; simply if there had been any confirmed cases in South Australia’s second biggest city!
The Victorian Government last week released a statistical breakdown of swine flu cases in the state, based on municipal areas. No secrets there.
As I will point out in an editorial tomorrow, people’s decision making in respect to personal and group behavior will naturally be influenced by the immediate level of risk.
The rumors in Mount Gambier are remarkably consistent; that seven or eight cases of swine flu have supposedly been confirmed.
If this is true, people might choose to avoid going to places where large numbers of people congregate. They might stay at home with the kids instead of putting them into childcare.
People have a right to make those choices based on reliable information.
The South Australian Government is withholding that information!
In this example, the rumor should have been denied if it’s false. Simple as that.
My brother got infected with H1N1 or Swine Flu in Mexico. He got a mild fever and luckily he did not die.
Having recently had the H1N1, I have never felt so awful that I just wanted to die.
Next flu season I will be lining up for my shot of vaccine, which will be unusual for me because I have never had a flu shot before.
If you look at the pandemic of 1977, when H1N1 or Swine Flu re-emerged after a 20 year absence, there is no shift in age-related mortality pattern. The 1977 “pandemic” is, of course, not considered a true pandemic by experts today, for reasons that are not entierely consistent.
It certainly was an antigenic shift and not an antigenic drift. As far as I have been able to follow the current events, the most significant factor seems to have been that most people, who were severely affected, were people with other medical conditions.