Swine flu alert! News/Death ratio: 8176
Posted
May 8, 2009 
Comments(76)
Comments(76)
About this VideoDuring the last 13 days, up to May 6, WHO has confirmed that 25 countries are affected by the Swine flu and 31 persons have died from Swine flu. WHO data indicates that about 60 000 persons died from TB during the same period. By a rough comparison with the number of news reports found by Google news search, Hans Rosling calculates a News/Death ratio and issue an alert for a media hype on Swine flu and a neglect of tuberculosis.
WHO TB data available at http://apps.who.int/globalatlas/dataQuery/default.asp WHO Swine Flu data available at http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/updates/en/index.html |
Thank you for sharing….Thank you for speaking up!!
[...] source: [...]
One in four TB deaths is aids related. Poor people don’t have cable and networks don’t interview the poor on a daily basis. I could not find the same statistics from WHO, although I don’t doubt the numbers are higher than swine flu.
[...] to tell us about it. If you do not follow Hans Rosling at Gapminder you should. On his latest Swine flu alert! News/Death ratio: 8,176 he compares the number of deaths from swine flu and tuberculosis, using the WHO numbers from April [...]
Mr. Rosling you should show this precisely on tv, do you think somebody at a tv station will dare show your video? I am sure there will be someone that will air it, even if they don’t (want to) understand
The world is truly in great need for some real information.
Thank you!
I don’t think the concern for Swine Flu has EVER been over the current death rate. All parties agree this is extremely low compared to other diseases. The cause for alarm is the potential RISK that swine flu causes for future death rates. Therefore it is erroneous logic to compare current death rates for these two diseases. You might as well be comparing the number of pigs infected with swine flu as compared to the number of pigs infected with tuberculosis.
I think your argument about media hype has much truth in it, but please use a more logical approach to prove it.
[...] Gefunden auf Gapminder.org. [...]
What were you expecting? News reports report news. Tuberculosis isn’t news. It’s _old_.
Dear Sir, in my opinion it would be interesting a comparison with people died in car accidents, too!
There are way more cancer deaths and cardio deaths than TB. That’s what the media should talk about. Diabetics death is huge too. So is traffic accidents, suicide and workplace accidents. The media should only talk about the only one with the highest deaths over the human history: infected wounds !!!
[...] Hans Rosling talking about media hype on Swine Flu http://www.gapminder.org/videos/swine-flu-alert-news-death-ratio-tuberculosis/ [...]
When will the world ever realise that TB is a global emergency and that TB and HIV are not in recession and are still causing havoc around the world.
Lets all join the fight against TB and HIV
[...] a fascinating series of “myth busting” videos. One of the more interesting explores the news reports-per-death ratio of H1N1 flu vs. tuberculosis. Another presents 200 years of economic and public health history in [...]
If we all were capable of speaking as frankly as you, the world would be a better place indeed. Thank you for inspiring the water community! And we hope your voice will be better listened too!
Incredible, finally a brief and honorous way to speak up about the media nowadays. There is no journalism who inform, but informations that sell.
New days are coming; more and more people are becoming criticals about our mondial organization. We just have to find out which direction the world is going to take…
Inspiring.
Your video reached till NGO in Brazil.
Thank you.
La fiebre en los medios [Eng]…
Hans Rosling pone en evidencia el desmesurado seguimiento de los medios de comunicación de la fiebre tipo A frente a otras enfermedades mucho más letales y extendidas como la tuberculosis….
Tack så mycket för din otrötliga insatser och röst för de rättlösa människor i världen.Jag har alltid beundrat energi och de synviklar du belyser. Jag en färsk erfaranhet för TBC min fru har insjuknat hör Sverige och när sökte vård hos vårdcentralen var distriktläkaren helt säker att det är muskelinflamation och att min fru har brist på D-vitamin och att hon borde åka något värm ställe. Vi bade att han remiterar oss för specialist men han tyckte att det var onödigt och till slut sökte vi vård hos akuten som upptäckte man att det är TBC och hon blev opererat och ligger just nu på sjukhuset. En del svenska läkare är ouppmärksamma på denna sjukdom. Tack en än gång från hjärtan.
Your video points on the fact tha some problems are not relevant in the news and they should be to receive also a good support from goverments and agencies to fight against them. I am not sure that tuberculosis is one of that forgetted problems, as during last years some initiatives have aroused, like the Global Fund on AIDs, Malaria and Tuberculosis. I support all the efforts to make this problem public, but there are some important facts that support the news coverage that influenza virus A/H1N1 have had.
First. News making is not only a matter of numbers. Numbers are important but they are not all that makes a subject a news. There are other atributes as surprise, the unexpected, to be the first time ever of an event that makes an issue relevant enought to became a news. Also if the subject has a potential of worsening or if the first clues of the event shows that the problem could be threatening for public opinion (and remember, we only knew that there were only 31 dead people in that period some days after, as the Mexican authorities gained capability to do the tests. First, they thought on more than 150 deaths and around 1400 to 1900 people problable to be infected by the new virus. Fortunately, that numbers were not confirmed.
Other factor directly involved on the number of stories around an issue is the avalaibility and flow of information from different sources. In this case, official sources (WHO, CDC, Mexican Presidency and Health Authorities) have developed an open and transparent communication policie, giving the lasts facts as they were getting them in press conferences and briefings that not only were available to journalist but to anyone in the world with internet access and knowledge of English and Spanish (or the possibility to translate). That quantity and quality of information in the media about H1N1 is related to the flow of messages sent by official sources, and that takes to the next point.
Second. The epidemic was (still it is) real. There was an unusual increase of cases of respiratory illness and pneumonia, there were a number of suddenly deaths on young adults (who are not supposed to die from a flu or pneumonia in such quantity in such a little time), and there was a new influenza virus, with very little information on how it will impact in human health, and there was the evidence of person-to-person transmission.
How can you fight against that? You need people colaboration in adopting some basic measures of self and community protection that are not easy to do because the social customs are in the opposite way: People use to say hi one to another with kisses and shaking hands, people is used to eat in the street without washing up hands, people is used to self medication when they feel sick with a flu and only go to the doctor when it takes to many days to cure (and in this virus, that may be have been to late for the unfortunately that had died).
The only way to change that and get people aware and participate on the measures to control the transmission is telling people what’s going on, even what you don’t know. And the only way to get sure that everybody hears the message is using all the channels you can reach, beggining by mass media.
In my opinion, and I may be wrong, as I still have to much to learn on Public Health, the great flow of news and stories about the AH1N1 was both part and the result of a strategy to cut the person-to-person transmission of the virus, led by the Health agencies and authorities which you support according to your video. Even out of Mexico, in the European countries as Spain (93 confirmed cases by now), the high coverage has allow to people that had travel to Mexio or the US, be aware of the situation and go to health facilities by themselves, possibly preventing from starting the community spread of the virus in this countries.
Third. If you look carefuly to the official data, you will see that by the 6th may, there were already 45 dead people by A/H1N1 (data avalaible on the web site of Mexican Health Secretary, in fact, here: http://portal.salud.gob.mx/redirector?tipo=0&n_seccion=Boletines&seccion=2009-05-08_3961.html)
It is true that this information was not avalaible on the 6th may, it is something we and health authorities know now. If you are referring only to WHO data, I have to say that for that day, the number of deaths were 29.
To finnish, the strong coverage on the AH1N1 influenza virus will have the effect seen already on your video and the comments: the issue is boring people and will soon (it is happening now) dissapeared from the covers of newspapers and get into the inside pages and the last minutes of tv and radio newsbroadcastings. And, as in the case os Spain, other issues, that are also very interesting to people but with low relevance to public health and humans lives, as who wins the football championship, will take the place.
Admin reply: Yes, we are using WHO data in the video and they issue two reports per day (please read the source we link to above) and in the second one (No. 18) the number is 31 not 29.
[...] News/Death ratio for the Swine Flu [...]
As an earlier poster indicated, your sometimes admirable methods don’t work in this case, because you fail to understand the worries about a new and still potentially lethal, rapidly spreading pandemic. In two weeks, the confirmed case in the US have increased 100-fold. some of this may be due to better reporting, but a large part is the speed of contagion despite the public caution. 50-100 million, mostly young healthy people may have died of the swine flu in 1918, out of total world population much smaller than now.
And concern about one disease is not relevant to concern about another. fighting media hype with hype of your own lowers my respect for you. I hope you retract this.
I reacted exactly the same way and managed to get a small notice in the Swedish morning news paper, DN last week telling that more than 3 people die in Malaria every minute! Every minute, actually 3,8 people = 2 million a year!!
Even more that in tuberculosis!
is it possible to have access to the slides? or a pdf? great demonstration .
An amazing presentation. Thank you.
[...] Swine flu alert! News/Death ratio: 8176 – Gapminder.org [...]
Diseases of the Rich – Swine Flu v Tuberculosis news-to-death ratios…
How media hypes diseases of the rich (from Hans Rosling)
This video is on YouTube, and says eloquently what I moaned about a week ago, ie the totally unrelated epidemics of swine flu in the media vs on the ground.
During the last 13 days, up to M…
[...] har sett på hvordan media rapporterer om svineinfluensa, og ignorerer andre smittsomme sykdommer som tar livet av tusenvis. During the last 13 days, up to [...]
Thank yopu for this priceless topical piece Dr. I really love your work and wish it was applied and acknowledged by a wider audience. I would like to make a request if you could kindly apply this to HIV/AIDS? I think a comparison would be interesting.
So true… well done!
it’s a valid comparison – between infectious diseases such as the swine flu, and then TB and malaria (I found that stat interesting); it seems a little different from chronic diseases such as diabetes, CVD etc., as they are so-called “life-style diseases” – very interesting to analyze none the less.
Car crashes something different yet again.
I just came from a class discussion group around drugs and alcohol, where the drink driving was brought up a couple of times. Several observations made, were
- over half of the emergency department admissions over the weekend in New Zealand, are alcohol related
- mostly, people don’t drink and drive because they don’t want to lose their license and not because of the reasons the laws are imposed (i.e. crashing).
[...] um vídeo que dá conta, com base em números oficiais da Organização Mundial da Saúde, que 31 pessoas morreram de gripe suína (ok, de influenza A H1N1) entre 24 de abril e 6 de maio [...]
Awesome comparison! The media gets off the track so easily!
Brilliant
Yeah, finally some statistics which prove how influencial the media is!! good on ya. Betcha this is all part of a bigger plan of the govenment.. e.g to increase security in air ports so that they could control people.
**conspiricy theories!! ** apparently swine flu was generated by scientists, it didn’t just “come about” or “develop from an old strain”
Good job speaking up
And over 400,000 kids died of hunger and preventable disease.
It’s hard to take presentations like these seriously. Not only because statistics is often used today to measure something qualitative, which is just bad science, but also because it is reductionistic rather then holistic. It’s not like there’s just one mechanism at work here. The context is totally different, and media coverage is a social construction so to omit the context is like missing the point. And then ofcourse, the numbers themselves don’t say anything, there’s no answer to the question “why” here. So, I really have a hard time to take this seriously.
But, this video confirms my own unofficial discourse analysis of the TV and Internet reports on the Swin Flu, so I will probably use this video as a reference, even though my reflective source criticism makes it slightly useless…
thank you for speaking out and show us the ratio/graphs. it opens my eyes. i was sure it was a media hype – like every time something happents in the world, but that it is so extremly (again) makes me wondering about our daily media world. thank you mr. rosling!
I totally agree with the statement about “each death case is worth reporting”, but:
Are we comparing apples and oranges when we talk about TB and swine flu?
Swine flu is a new thing. As it is a new and thus uncertain in terms of its consequences desease, it is likely to be covered more than TB.
I admit that it is the biggest crime to forget about the huge number of victims of TB and alarm about few lethal cases of swine flu. In the end, each human life must worth the same.
I just think that the point of comparison is misleading a bit…
[...] how much worry and debate over a topic is based on substance and how much is just filler (ahem, the Swine Flu ’scare’). However, it looks the amount of attention on these two stories is [...]
[...] how much worry and debate over a topic is based on substance and how much is just filler (ahem, the Swine Flu ’scare’). However, it appears that the amount of attention on the food and auto stories has been [...]
[...] ég hvet kennara að kynna sér betur. Á vef Gapminder eru fleiri myndskeið með Rosling, t.a.m. þetta hér þar sem hann fjallar um fjölmiðlafárið í kringum [...]
[...] News/Death ratio for the Swine Flu [...]
You should cross-reference with distance between the source of the report and the death to highlight what an introverted view of the world most people/media have. If we could fix that then maybe things would start to change.
[...] valt het allemaal erg mee. De eigenzinnige directeur van het Deense Gapminder, Hans Rosling, heeft de relatie onderzocht (video) tussen nieuwsberichten en werkelijke ziektegevallen. Hij vergelijkt de schokkende cijfers met de [...]
[...] This is a very nice analysis of the news reporting about current and daily happening catastrophies which calculates a news death ration for swine flu and tuberculosis. [...]
[...] com dados divulgados pela Marktest). Numa perspectiva mais larga, é interessante citar dados de um vídeo difundido na Internet pela Fundação Gapminder, sediada na Suécia, segundo os quais só nos [...]
Is there any update to this video? It would be very interesting to see how it has progressed since May. My suspicion would be that the News/Death ratio for Swine flu would have dropped, but it would still vastly exceed that for TB.
This is surely a situation that results from the desire of all the big news agencies to report “the news” before it happens!
T
Almost 3 months on I’d love to see a comparison between the death rates being reported for swine flu now compared with those for so called normal seasonal flu.
[...] En el cuadro que aparece al final del vídeo, el autor calcula el ratio de noticias/muertes. Lo que se ve a la izquierda es el número de víctimas por gripe porcina y a la derecha el número de víctimas por tuberculosis. El ratio que da como resultado es cuando menos aterrador… [...]
[...] En el cuadro que aparece al final del vídeo, el autor calcula el ratio de noticias/muertes. Lo que se ve a la izquierda es el número de víctimas por gripe porcina y a la derecha el número de víctimas por tuberculosis. El ratio que da como resultado es cuando menos aterrador… [...]
With the help of the News Media more people washing their hands and increae the preventive measures to avoid catching the swine flu. Without the news hype we might be in real trouble.
No doubt TB is on the rise and news media do report it every few months. Also government and WHO do keep an eye on it.
As compared to the SARS few years ago the world including News Media were late to response. Any comparison to SARS? Do we want to live in a preventive life style or corrective measures? This swine flu can be deadly but with all the precautions it is not spreading at this moments.
A good News Media should have one Health item or more daily that will help us be informed. Some TV stations are doing it and hope all will do it. This is the focus we as the public should push for.
Thanks for sharing the serious problem of TB.
Swine Flu: Federal Initiative to Fight current and future Variants of Influenza…
Even considering the current less fatal course of disease within industrialized countries, one will not want to get infected.
……
[...] Swine flu alert! News/Death ratio: 8176 – Gapminder.org – amazing short video giving a concrete example of media hype regarding Swine Flu [...]
How did you get the numbers from news.google.com?
What was the search term and what was the timespan?
(”swine flu” in 2009: 82400 “h1n1″ in 2009: 332000)
[...] Swine flu alert! News/Death ratio: 8176 [...]
[...] För var och en som vill ha lite perspektiv på riskerna med svininfluensan i förhållande till andra, betydligt vanligare sjukdomar bör titta på Roslings video. [...]
[...] Si tienen interés de ver el vídeo (está en inglés), lo tienen en: http://www.gapminder.org/videos/swine-flu-alert-news-death-ratio-tuberculosis/ [...]
[...] sospecha que tengo viene reforzada de una manera gráfica en un pequeño vídeo que no llega a los 5 minutos: el profesor Hans Rossling, un especialista en desarrollo y en salud [...]
[...] this Video Swine flu alert! News/Death ratio: 8176 Posted May 8, 2009 News/Death ratio for Swine flu and [...]
We (as adult humans) notice what changes in our environment and have to be reminded of that which remains constant. Thanks for the reminder. Think of a humming florescent light in the kitchen and a fly darting around your living room- which do you pay more attention to?
Thank you so much.
I am glad people like you exist.
I am glad people like you stand up to bring some light into the confusion created by a society that has become too far from humanity and too close to profit-profit-maximize-profit-fast-fast-never-stop-don’t-think-just-do-it-where-is-my-bank-account-statement-am-i-a-winner…
THANK YOU.
[...] @ceyusa have you seen the Hans Roslings video on swine flu? http://www.gapminder.org/videos/swine-flu-alert-news-death-ratio-tuberculosis/ [...]
[...] Source: Gapminder.org [...]
[...] crear algunas divertidas, cuando tenga tiempo… Hoy me he encontrado con esta historia “Swine flu alert! News/Death Ratio“, en la que Rosling sorprende con su ratio “noticias/muertes” comparando muertes [...]
[...] såg också nyligen detta tänkvärda inlägg av Hans Rosling i svininfluensadebatten och lade ihop ett och ett. Borde man inte kunna använda [...]
The seasonal flu kills 500,000 people worldwide each year. The 1918 flu pandemic killed 50-100 MILLION people back when the world’s population was a quarter of what it is today. Swine flu had the potential to be anywhere in between, so it’s on par with tuberculosis, which kills 1.8 million people, of whom 1 in 4 also have HIV.
I’m personally more interested in news about swine flu than about TB, because swine flu is more likely to kill me this year.
Of course most newsworthy events don’t involve any death, so their news/death ratio is infinity.
THANK YOU for this. I am going to show this to all my friends to prove that Swine Flu is nine billion percent overhyped. Thanks!
Excellent coverage. Pretty and effective presentation. This should be broadcasted. I have the same feeling news isn’t covering news in a balanced way. I will make a link to Digg.
very interesting. Watching this clip led me to the consider the possibility that the large amount of media coverage may have actually prevented the swine flu death statistics from outweighing those of tuberculosis.
I’d like to see the statistics projecting potential deaths from swine flu if it had the same amount of media coverage as tuberculosis.
Very, very interesting… Did you know that there are more poeple who dies from the regular flu then the pig flu?
Thank you for minding the gap!
Interesting statistics. Is it possible to get a grafic that shows how deadly this swineflu has been in relation to for example the ordinary flu 2008?
Also interesting to se that this swineflu only strikes “rich” countries that can afford vaccine
And don’t forget that Swine Flu treatment is Tamiflu made by Roche but licensed by Gilead which Donald Rumsfeld used to run and still is a major stockholder. They also make the vaccines for Anthrax and Bird Flu if you were wondering why those got such a big hype as well. But that’s probably just a coincidence.
[...] Came across this today… http://www.gapminder.org/videos/swine-flu-alert-news-death-ratio-tuber... Posted by admin | January 26th, 2010 | Published in Swine Flu News [...]