Zika Virus in the Age of Facebook

It seems like everywhere you turn, there is another headline about the Zika virus. And the story is not great. Yet, I’m trying to figure out whether this is a real concern or perhaps just another case of media coverage gone a tad overboard?

This virus, transmitted primarily through mosquitos, appears to be on a mean tear through Latin America, with Brazil as the epidemic birthplace. The virus is linked to brain damaged babies born in Brazil – a link that is still a hunch and not yet proven.

So I had to double take to make sure I was not reading the Onion when a local news circuit reported that government officials in El Salvador were telling women not get pregnant for two years. Seriously? And abortions are illegal in El Salvador. Clearly, the officials there have not thought this through.

And now the WHO has declared a public health emergency of international concern.  The good news, this triggers funding to establish the connection of the virus with this terrible affliction causing babies to be born with abnormally small heads.

In the meantime every other friend is posting Zika-virus stories to their Facebook page.

So here’s what I’m wondering. How much of this media frenzy is helping people versus instilling fear? Could we be over-sensationalizing this story, same as we did with the swine flu? You might recall that there’s a vastly larger number of people who die of the regular flu – so where was the big news on that?  Or who remembers Anthrax? Maybe we are just in a new reality of how news or perhaps just viruses go viral in this age of Facebook.