EDITORIAL - "Suspect" under suspicion

The media in Cebu or anywhere else that picked up the story about the first three people quarantined at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center did not err when they reported them as “suspected” cases of the Influenza A(H1N1) virus.

They would have been in error had they reported the cases as verified, as opposed to just being “suspected.” To be suspected means no judgment has been passed, no conclusions made. Even the regional health director herself used the word “suspected” in tv interviews.

And why was it correct to say that the three persons quarantined at the hospital were “suspected” cases? Because they were running a fever, which is one of the symptoms. And also because they came from places where the swine flu already made a verified presence.

If they were not “suspected” cases, why then were they singled out from among the scores of other passengers who flew in the same plane from Hong Kong? And what about the other one who submitted herself to the hospital? Didn’t she do so because of her own “suspicions?”

No problem using the term “cases under observation.” But then again, if we have Pedro, Juan and Jose, and we single out only Jose to place under observation, aren’t we in effect suspecting Jose of something, which is precisely why we are placing him under observation?

We place Jose under observation because we “suspect” him of something. We are not placing the other two — Pedro and Juan — under observation because we do not suspect them of anything. Nothing could be clearer than that.

What is not clear is why the media must be taken to task over something in which they did no wrong and which was not of their own doing. If reporting something as it is does harm to anyone, it does not cure that harm by reporting it as something else.

In other countries with more responsible media and more open-minded citizenries, there has never been any problem reporting any “suspected” cases as suspected cases. If you don’t believe this, check your favorite foreign news channel or read stories from the wire services.