| Reporting on H1N1 |
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Posted: Wednesday, October 28, 2009 9:24 am
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We don’t print rumors. That’s important to say from the outset.
Here’s the reason I mention it. On a recent Friday, I received a telephone call from a woman who wondered why we had not reported on a child Owatonna enrolled in the local Head Start program who died of H1N1 flu.
“Well,” I said, “this is the first I’ve heard of it.”
She told me that she had heard it from two different sources, including, she said, from someone who supposedly worked for Head Start.
Of course, if such a death occurred, we would want to report it immediately. So I called in one of the reporters and told her we needed to jump on this story to find out what we could.
What we discovered in the next hour or so that we could confirm was, in a word, nothing.
I personally called folks at Head Start to see what, if anything, they could tell us. The person with whom I spoke was actually shocked when I told her the rumor that was floating around. No, she said, she hadn’t heard anything remotely related to that rumor. So at that point, we knew nothing.
I also went to the Steele County Recorder’s Office to see if a death certificate — a public record — had been filed in the past couple of days for a child and if that certificate listed a cause of death. Again, nothing. No such certificate had been filed. Did that mean that a child from Steele County hadn’t died of H1N1? Not at all. Officials there told me there were at least a couple of reasons that the certificate might not yet be on record. It takes time, sometimes several days or even a week or more, before the certificates are filed. Furthermore, if the child was from Steele County, but died elsewhere — say in Rochester or in the Cities — then the death certificate would not be filed here, but in the county in which the child died.
I also contacted local funeral homes to see if they knew of any such death. They did not. Then again, they told me, they might not know. The rumor, you see, was that the child was of Somali descent, and, they said, because of their own cultural traditions and religious practices, most Somalians in Owatonna do not use local funeral homes but work through funeral homes in the Cities. In other words, such a death could occur, but they would not know about it.
On another front of the investigation, Melissa Kaelin, one of our reporters, was working through health officials, calling first the Steele County Department of Health. But officials there said at the time that it had no such information on such a death. Nor had any of the surrounding counties — all of which would have been notified if an H1N1 death had occurred here. Additionally, spokespersons from the Minnesota Department of Health told us, at the time, that they knew of no such death from a confirmed case of H1N1 in Steele County.
When we contacted the Owatonna Hospital, hospital officials were, understandably, cautious in what they told us. Patient confidentiality limited what they could say. What they told us at the time was that there had been one confirmed case of H1N1 at the Owatonna Hospital. But, they said that that patient was treated, responded well to treatment and was discharged from the hospital. They did tell us that there had been a patient in respiratory distress who was seen in the Emergency Department of the hospital and transferred to Rochester. That person eventually died. Once again, however, patient confidentiality prevented the hospital officials from telling us who the person was, hold old the person was, if the person had tested positive for the H1N1 virus, or even if a test for H1N1 had been administered.
Did we think there was any validity to the rumor? Yes, we did. But we didn’t have enough to say definitively that a Steele County child had died of H1N1. The story we printed in the next day’s paper (“Officials: H1N1 confirmed in Steele County”) contained pretty much the information listed above, though it said nothing of a child dying. Why? Because we couldn’t be sure.
Then, almost a week later, the Minnesota Department of Health announced three more deaths in Minnesota related to the H1N1 virus, including a child in Steele County. Once we had that confirmation, we printed the story.
I point this out because it says something about the difficulty that we, as well as other media sources, encounter in reporting about H1N1. It’s a very serious subject and one that we don’t take lightly. Still, it’s difficult to deny that much of the media, especially cable news channels, have sensationalized the story.
On the one hand, we want to tell how the virus is affecting people, especially here in Steele County. And we believe we have a responsibility to tell not only that story, but to get information to readers, both in our print edition and online, about how they can take preventative measures to stop the spread of the virus.
On the other hand, we don’t want to print rumors about how widespread the virus is, especially if there when there is no definitive confirmation that it is widespread. One thing we don’t want to do is spread panic.
Rest assured, we will continue to follow this story.
Jeffrey Jackson is the managing editor of the Owatonna People’s Press. He can be reached at 444-2371 or jjackson@owatonna.com.
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Member Opinions:
By: stormchaser28 on 10/28/09
H1N1 reports are exaggerated to say the least. CBS just did a story on it last week saying how much the numbers have been exaggerated. H1N1 is no longer being tested for and the test itself costs $300. Every sniffle, cough, sneeze, fever is being called H1N1 when it could also be just a cold, or some other virus going around. The best advice is to remember hand washing, sneeze & cough into your elbow, stay home if you are sick.
By: Jesus_isKing on 10/28/09
Keep your hands away from your nose and mouth too.
By: InTheKnow55060 on 10/28/09
During week 42 influenza activity has increased in Minnesota •Two hundred eighty-eight (288) schools reported outbreaks of influenza-like illness during week 42. Two hundred thirty (230) schools reported outbreaks in week 41. •There have been no outbreaks due to influenza reported from long-term care facilities (defined as skilled nursing facilities) this week. •Influenza-like illness visits to outpatient clinics involved in our Sentinel Provider Network remain elevated. •Since September 1st, 2009, there have been 655 confirmed novel H1N1 influenza hospitalizations and 915 total novel H1N1 hospitalizations since the virus was first identified in Minnesota. •Two (2) influenza A H1N1-associated deaths were reported in week 42. Twelve (12) influenza A H1N1-associated deaths have been reported since the virus was first identified in Minnesota. •The most common strain of influenza characterized at the MDH PHL has been 2009 influenza A H1N1.
By: clean-n-sober on 10/28/09
I did not personally see it, but a neighbor mentioned getting a letter home that was sent home with her child and how sad it was that someone had lost a child to H1N1.
By: msw1 on 10/29/09
It was on the news last week, that a 6 year old child from steele county died from H1N1, but also had other medical conditions. My daughter had a letter sent home Monday saying that Washington school has met the 5 percent for children ill with flu like symptoms, of course this does not mean that every child has H1N1, the regular flu is still going around.
By: secretsquirrel on 11/1/09
Well, good thing we rodents are immune. Glad the OPP crew took the time to track this down and verify facts before running with the story. It's helpful to all of your readers to see exactly what goes into determining a story a story as opposed to printing rumors. They had a story a few months back in the Faribault paper about strange lights in the skies over the city. I had an absolute BALL with that one! Turns out they were Chinese wedding lanterns that are described as paper balloons with candles in them which heat the air and allow the luminaries to float across the sky. Anything I read or hear, I tend to take with a grain of salt. Some stories take a 40 lb. salt lick from Fleet Farm to digest. I think the idendtifying term of H1N1 came from the moment some biologist looked through his microscope and shouted "We Have 1 New 1!"
By: kaitlynn55 on 11/2/09
secretsquirrel - glad you can identify your species.
By: secretsquirrel on 11/2/09
=D
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