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Anxiety about the Mexican swine 'flu is abating but no big news story came along to supplant it. So for the sixth weekday out of the last seven, influenza was Story of the Day, this time by default. With just eight minutes of airtime, the 'flu had its lightest weekday of coverage since April 23rd. Only NBC considered the 'flu important enough to lead its newscast. CBS, with substitute anchor Jeff Glor, selected President Barack Obama's proposal to close corporate tax loopholes. ABC started with so-called green shoots, economic indicators that may, or may not, presage the end of the recession.

NBC's Robert Bazell reminded us that it has been ten days now since public health officials worldwide started preparing "for a potential health disaster. We can say tonight, fortunately, the worst case scenario is certainly not unfolding." A pandemic of the Mexican swine 'flu may yet occur--but it may turn out to be a very mild one. CBS' Nancy Cordes talked to public health officials in the federal government and they "seem more and more convinced that the threat here is declining."

NBC's Kerry Sanders (as part of the Bazell videostream) felt the same feeling of relief in Mexico City, where the health ministry announced that the worst is over and "four days into a five-day shutdown the city is returning to its busy ways." The country's tourism industry however "is on life support," CBS' Cordes noted, with 70% of all hotel reservations in Cancun canceled and cruise ships sailing past Mexican ports of calls.

China turned out to be an exception to this relaxation. ABC's Lama Hasan was in Hong Kong to show us the hotel in which some 300 guests have been quarantined for four straight days because one of them tested positive for the H1N1 virus. "So far not one of them is showing signs of being sick." Also healthy are passengers escorted off an airline flight from Mexico to Shanghai. "They too are under quarantine." Hasan offered the explanation for this apparent overreaction that "six years ago the Chinese government was criticized for being slow to react to the SARS outbreak" that killed almost 300 in Hong Kong.

So has the Mexican swine 'flu gone away? NBC's Bazell reminded us that the mild influenza of 1917 returned a year later to kill millions. "The problem is that viruses do not read history books. Each epidemic, each outbreak is different. We just do not know: it could come back worse; it could come back milder. Who knows?"--refreshing candor from our correspondent.


Andrew Tyndall 5/6/09 5:20:23 pm

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