Swine flu arrives in Hastings and Prince Edward District
Autumn 2009 update: Swine flu (H1N1) is occurring in Prince Edward County and all reported cases are said to be mild. Follow this story by visiting Mix 97 news or the Loyalist College Online Pioneer.
It seemed unavoidable that the illness known as “human swine flu” or “H1N1 Influenza-A” would spread to southeastern Ontario.
The Hastings and Prince Edward Counties Health Unit announced Friday that lab results were back and the region’s first case of the flu had been confirmed.
I was covering the newsroom on Friday when the media release landed in our inbox. It seemed like an all-consuming story at a glance, but I didn’t want to inflate the facts just to create drama.
I wrote up a story and started airing it around 2pm, and shortly afterward received a phone call from my news director.
“Be prepared for it to get hairy in there,” came his greeting; and for a moment I couldn’t imagine what he might be talking about.
He quickly got to the point, and I was glad to say we already had the story – I think by that time, I’d even done an interview with the health unit. We were both relieved that the case was mild, that the victim had since recovered and that it wasn’t going to get any hairier in the newsroom.
The media does have to be careful not to blow things out of proportion while fulfilling its duty to distribute information to the public. By avoiding the over-dramatizing of the story and showing respect to our agriculture industry by calling the illness by its medical name as often as possible (without compromising our listeners’ comprehension), we can keep the public informed without scaring people. I’m happy to say on Friday we were able to do just that.
For daily updates on reported cases of the swine flu, you can check the Public Health Agency of Canada Web site. Updates are posted each day at 4pm.
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