Press reactions on the swine flu alert: differences between Australia and Germany

G´day,

And a sightly muffled "Hello" (caused by my antiviral facemask) to my congregation, Hi Emm, Josara, Julia, Cord, Andrew, Sott and Bill. Well, now we have a pandemic on the loose and it´s quite funny to observe the difference in the press coverage about it.

First let´s have a look at the de facto situation in Australia and Germany: according to the WHO´s status report from yesterday Australia has 1224 confirmed H1N1 cases, Germany has 78. And just to remind you, Germany´s population is roughy four times larger than Australia´s. And the more important part is that the swine flu infections in Australia are spreading locally, so they are not imported anymore and Australia has become the second "independent" desease centre whereas the infections in Germany were (more or less) all imported from Mexico/US.

Judging from the de facto stuation you´d think that the press down under would do a pretty dense covering on swine flu and Germany would be much more relaxed but the opposite is the case. Germany´s biggest newspaper the BILD (yellow press) titled this morning: "Swine flu! The big wave is upon us! Highest alert declared!" and they quote WHO´s Director-General Margaret Chan like this "The virus is extremly unpredictable and can´t be stopped". BILD also quotes an unnamed source from the Robert Koch institute (Germany´s center for infectious deseases) saying that fatal cases have to be expected. I most like the fact that BILD used 5 exclamation marks!

When I had a look on the internet pages of The Age and the Herald Sun (Melbourne edition) I expected that swine flu would be somewhere at the top as 90% of the Australian cases happen in Victoria but the top story in both newspapers was "Man bitten by snake in CBD". Btw I love that story, apparently a cleaner was bitten by a Brown snake (very deadly) when he wanted to throw some garbage into a dumpster just outside the Myer store. As the snake was nowhere to be found the snake expert who was called to find the animal stated that is was probably a rat who bit the guy (lol hurt professional pride I reckon) but the paramedic declared it was definetly a snake bite...so the snake is still on the loose. The news on the swine flu is hidden somewhere further down the websites and it´s more or less along the lines "No worries, AFL and other major public events will still take place...". The Age quotes PM Kev with an awesome quote:

"I think in terms of preparedness we're okay, but let's look at the fact that Australia is a highly mobile population and a lot of Australians travel internationally and as a result we've got some challenges to deal with,'' Mr Rudd told the Seven Network.

I love it, very Australian! And no exclamation mark found in any article...

Well I´ll continue with German panic and stock up my Tamiflu and wash my hands every half an hour and you guys have fun at the AFL this weekend...take care...don´t get sick and cya later