Zika is a mosquito borne illness by Aedes aegypti mosquito
that is sweeping through the Western Hemisphere and has been reported in
southern areas of the United States. Symptoms have been observed to be
associated with microcephaly and the potential effects lead the World Health Organization
to declare Zika as a global health emergency.
Reporter Johnathan Katz was in Haiti last month, showed
symptoms of Zika, and shared his experiences in New York Times Magazine. Katz
believes that Zika is not medical emergency even though he felt rundown and experienced
rashes on his face and chest. He has experienced mosquito borne diseases before
like Chikungunya and described Zika as mild in comparison.
The question is should we as a nation be seriously
concerned? Personally, this is the first that I’ve heard of this disease.
Obviously if you live in warmer areas that are susceptible to mosquitos I think
you should be aware and educate yourself of your surroundings. Katz stated, “As
the planet gets warmer the range of this particular mosquito and other
mosquitos will expand and more areas will be affect by mosquito borne diseases
than were in the past.” Similar to the Ebola outbreak, I think it good to be
knowledgeable about this, but I don’t think we as a nation should be freaking
out. Katz illustrated that these diseases start in international places of
poverty with little to no power and they have been reported in U.S areas such
as Boston that have a slim chance of transmission due to the weather and
mosquito history.
Katz commented, “People will only start pay attention to
something when they freak out about it. This leads to another problem. Not
everything you prepare for is going to happen to you, but you always needs to prepare.
The way that human nature seems to work is that If you tell people to prepared something
and it doesn’t happen, there is a little “Boy that cried wolf” syndrome.”
I believe that the U.S should not panic. I just think of
Ebola and how hyped up it became for a week and then we never heard of it
again. Although this is new to the Western Hemisphere, It good to inform the
public of what the knowns and the unknowns, but until Zika has shown serious
signs of outbreak we should not worry so much about ourselves, but for those
suffering overseas.
In the video they played sound bites of new stations across the
nation and the anchors did report with a sense of urgency in their voice. Katz
brought up a good question when addressing the media, “What are you
communicating when you report the news like that. What are you actually telling
people?” When I heard those sound bites, I was concerned I had never heard
about Zika and that it was reported on U.S soil. Listening to Katz who has experienced
Zika and these diseases put me more at ease because he has credibility. I think
the media is moving too fast on the matter whereas Katz is casual and not phase
by the situation. “Scaring people just for its own sake, doesn’t really accomplish
anything. The more dramatic and the direr you make it sound the worst the boy
who cried wolf syndrome is going to get afterwards.”
I think when it comes to these outbreaks the media can’t
rush to report as if it is an emergency, but instead just inform. I know that is counter intuitive to
their jobs, but we can’t get to nervous about this. The news should report all
sides of the story instead of just the negative because that when people start to get concerned. Instead of making the
public scared we should be working overseas to help stop the formation of these
diseases.
“If diseases can make
its way overseas to America, we needs to work together internationally to try
to address the systemic roots of poverty so we can prevent those diseases to
crop up anywhere.”
I know this is easier said than done, but like Katz, we shouldn't panic.
I also agree with you Shelby when you say the nation is making a huge deal about it. I am sure CANCER kills more people every year than Zika ever will and there are more cases of cancer in the US that go overlooked everyday. Just because someone somewhere has a mosquito bite and there is a chance that they have the Zika virus doesn't mean that we need to quaruntine that person. It is super un likely that the virus is ever going to spread from that person. Like i said in my post on the subject this is just like the huge ebola scare. Nobody had even heard about it and then like wild fire everyone and there dog started doing self diagnosis and trying to give a reasonable case for having the disease. Not a big deal however i think the only way that we can work with people overseas is if you start making people get physicals before flying into america. I highly doubt the little mosquitos are capable of flying overseas with the virus in huge quantities and attacking the human race. We bring the diseases with us and in this case it is extremely rare like Katz said that it will be spread. My opinion is that it is just a big hype and we really don't need to donate 1.8 billion dollars or million i already forgot what Obama had said and we should put that money some where useful.
ReplyDeleteThe media is always looking for a new story and often use the latest health scare to get viewers or readers. Most of these “stories” are not backed with valid studies and are put out there by New companies and sold by celebrities as factual information. The new social media has really expounded this problem ! It is good for people to be aware but also to consider the new source and studies to the reported information. Yes mosquitoes are undesirable pest and spread disease and there are certain things you can do in you community to reduce the mosquitoes population in your community. By not allowing stale stagnant water to be laying around and reporting any areas or still water that have a heavy mosquito population to the health department so they can be sprayed are a few things you can do. But yes the risk of getting one of these diseases is probably far less then getting hit by a car on the way back from the mailbox. These Health Scares and concerns need to be prioritized and kept in check according to their actual physical threat to the public. And 15 years ago before social media and 25 years ago before the internet was a big thing we would have probably never even heard of the Zika scare!
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