This is the new designation for the flu currently "sweeping" the country, We can't call it "Swine flu" anymore (even though it originated in pigs), because it may offend Muslims and is causing concern by some people who think it can be caught by eating pork. We have had a little over 100 cases in the U.S., so far, out of 300 million people. There has been one death so far. This does not appear to be a very virulent form of influenza, but if you watch the News you would swear we were having an outbreak of Ebola virus (about 85% fatal) that had mutated into an airborne disease. Wednesday night the first 40 minutes of the local news was "flu" related, the next night it was only slightly less. In a normal winter, there are millions of cases of whatever flu variety is around that year, which results in an average of 36,000 deaths every year. This is just the type of story the media loves. They go out of their way to make it as scary as possible to see if they can push the public into outright panic.
A little history lesson here. In the 1918 Flu (also a swine variety) pandemic, which killed millions of people worldwide, the flu first appeared in the Spring as a not very virulent form. It died out fairly quickly. It came back in the fall of that year in a much more virulent form and started killing people left and right. There were no vaccines then, and I'm pretty sure that if we are in for a repeat of 1918, there will be a vaccine developed by this coming Fall, but in case there isn't going to be one, I think I'll go out now, try to get infected so that in the fall I'll be immune.
Jon,
ReplyDeleteThe government didn't help by issuing a public health emergency. They only did that so they could release the national stockpile of medicines and supplies. Connecticut still has not declared a state of emergency, but the media is making everyone crazy. I am hoping it calms down enough by the weekend so us healthcare folks can get some rest!
Judy
Judy, I actually called WFSB 3 about this very thing last night. They mentioned that the public was near panic mode. I told them they were causing it with their wall to wall coverage of it. We have about a dozen suspected cases with one confirmed in Connecticut and Dennis House refered to it as a pandemic. I then switched to "Special Report" with Bret Baier on Fox News and he reported that a expert had said that this flu is less virulent than the normal seasonal influenza. Unbelievable! It's just like in winter when they are predicting a couples of inches of snow. You'd think a repeat of the blizzard of '88 was coming. It's Southern New England, it snows here in the winter!!
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