*Update* I guess I scooped the local news paper. Hope my son-in-law is reading this. Seems the craziness has already started. Today's headline (I posted last night) says "Flu-likecases shutMauldinHigh today" (complete with typo). See their article here.
Unless you've been ignoring news on radio, TV and the newspapers, you've heard a lot in the last few days about the Swine Flu Pandemic. Seems like everyone is up in arms and running around like chicken little. Just how serious is this disease?
Well, I don't want to make it sound small. There has been 1 death in the US and the parents of that child don't think it's small. But let's look at the facts.
There are approximately 307 million people in the US. With about 100 cases of the flu confirmed, that means there is one case for every 3 million people. This means about 3 people in all of New York City.
The disease is more prevalent in Mexico. The population there is about 111 million and there are about 1000 cases of the flu. 68 people have died. That means one death for every 1.6 million people (about 4 in a city the size of New York) and that one in 111 thousand are affected. I'm a big Clemson fan, if I went to three sold-out home games, there would be two infected people at the games.
When looking at it this way, one might wonder why is this being pushed so hard? Communist plot? Democratic plot? No, I think it's very simple. TV, radio and newspapers like to sell TV, radio and newspapers, so the folks in charge like to stir things up. Also, the people at WHO and related agencies won't have a job if there are no pandemics.
P.S. I'm working on a multi-part post on President Obama's performance. Be looking for it to come.
4 comments:
Last year over 200,000 people were hospitalized and 36,000 people died frm the *regular* flu, and no one called it a pandemic, let alone a big deal. Swine flu is just a different type of influena, made all exotic by the fact it species-jumps. But it makes a nice distraction away from the economy, an idiot government, the war, and things like salmonela and E-coli in our food supply.
Wash your hands, avoid sick people, and have some flu meds handy. And don't roll around playing with sickly looking pigs...
I would agree with MojoSteve about the meds. A nurse at my school said that Tamiflu would be good, but docs. are not going to be giving that out regularly. Coworker had to cancel honeymoon to Mexico and is still wondering if Jamaica would be ok. It's crazy!
Mojo, where's the glory in dieing from the "regular" flu? The swine flu is so much more appealing. :)
And frankly, rolling around with regular looking pigs doesn't sound too appealing either.
Alli, I think the word is "over-reaction"?
What performance?
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