On The Media talks about pandemic panic

[sunfell]

The NPR radio show, On the Media has an excellent segment about the H1N1 'panic', and what's really happening:

ERIC KLINENBERG: The email said that they're looking for someone who could talk about the way the public reacts in panics. And then she goes on, think fallout shelters, anthrax scares and buying duct tape before the Iraq War. [BROOKE LAUGHS] She just wants someone quotable who can give me a behavioral perspective on all this.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So what’s wrong with that?

ERIC KLINENBERG: Well, the problem is, if there’s one finding that’s consistent in the sociology of disasters over the last, say, five decades, it’s when there are crises, people don't panic. And yet no matter how hard we try to make this point, we always get emails and phone calls along these lines.

So I immediately responded in an email and said, look, I'd be more than happy to speak with you, but here’s the thing. It turns out that sociology of disaster mostly tells us that people don't panic, in general.

And furthermore, if we look specifically at what’s happening here in New York City, I don't see any signs of panic. I walk to work and haven't seen a single person wearing a mask at this point, no violence, no screaming, no people keeping their kids home from school en masse.

And I said, look, even, at Mexico City. I'm seeing images of people who are being cautious, far more people wearing masks, but the scenes from the streets that we've seen in the news, at least, don't suggest that there’s panic.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Well, that sounds like a sober-sided corrective. How did the story come out?

ERIC KLINENBERG: The headline of the piece is, Swine Flu Snafu: Ernst & Young Episode Reveals Pandemic Panic. And then the kind of lead story is that there was a case where one worker at Ernst & Young went home sick and many people were concerned that that worker had developed swine flu. But then they later verified that it was not a case of swine flu. So -

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Sounds terrifying.

ERIC KLINENBERG: Yeah. [BROOKE LAUGHS] I mean, there’s just no [LAUGHS] – exactly. I mean, there’s no evidence even in the lead anecdote for what became a five-page story about panic in the United States. The best they could do was a story where there doesn't seem to be any panic whatsoever.

Got that? People don't tend to panic in disaster situations, in general. That is good to know.