Newsflash: H1N1 health certificate required for expats

Or maybe not.

Consider these two news articles:

Gulf News, 27 July:  "Malls to be provided with thermal scanners"

The National, 28 July:  "Ministry denies call for swine flu certificate"

At first glance, you might shrug and say "so what."  Two completely different pieces of news, right?  Well, not in that bastion of journalistic talent out in the desert.

There are so many things wrong with this I don't know where to start.

The first article, despite carrying the headline about malls and thermal scanners, leads with the following:

Abu Dhabi: Expatriates who are working in the UAE and are on vacation abroad will have to produce a medical certificate that proves they are not infected with H1N1 virus before returning to the country. The move will be implemented from August.

Expatriates who are working?  What about tourists and expat housewives?  And what if they're working expats who didn't leave to go on vacation, but on business?  What is the issuing authority of the medical certificate?  Is it time-sensitive?

Farther down (much farther down), there's a little snippet having something to do with putting thermal scanners in malls.  Then there's some other stuff about incoming flights.

Huh?  What school of journalism did this guy attend where they taught him to generate a headline based on the content of the pre-antepenultimate paragraph in his article (which, by the way, has more than four paragraphs)?  This really upsets me.  Almost as much as having to type out "pre-antepenultimate." If you're not laughing yet, be sure to check out the byline:  this fellow is the Abu Dhabi EDITOR.

It gets better.

According to today's National, the Ministry of Health denies all claims that it resolved to implement a system where returning expats are required to produce H1N1 certificates.  It also denies that thermal scanners will be installed in malls.

I am waiting with baited breath for tomorrow's Gulf News.