I stumbled across this article on the front page of CNN’s website today.
Yes, folks. H1N1. I’m going there.
The headline of that article reads, “H1N1: Pandemic was emotional as well as physical.”
Uhhh. Yeah. All I could think was, “OBVIOUSLY. THE ENTIRE NATION FREAKED OUT AND BLEW EVERYTHING WAY OUT OF PROPORTION. IT WAS STUPID.”
Maybe I’m just bitter because I was on a cruise when this pandemic hit, and we couldn’t go to Mexico because of it. I didn’t get any of my money back, either. It sucked.
I digress.
The article talks about how panic, not swine flu, infected the public. Patients flocked to hospitals and clinics across the country. They waited to hear about a possible vaccine being made. They waited to learn when the vaccine would be made. They waited for the vaccine to ship to their state, their county, their clinic. They waited to get their shots.
They waited.
The longer we wait, the more antsy we get. Factor in all the media hype and updates on the news every 30 seconds reporting new cases of the dreaded swine flu in your area, and it’s the perfect recipe for panic and distress a la mode.
Even though that article brings to light the overreaction to the situation, it still focuses on keeping in mind that the virus won’t go away just because it’s not in the forefront of our minds anymore. It warns us to be wary of the virus because it’s still around and the “risks should not be discounted.”
File this under “scare the public.” This is just the type of coverage H1N1 has been getting since it popped up.
We’re constantly told that this virus is different / this virus affects unusually healthy people / this virus could kill you / this virus’ risks should not be discounted…
Although it did kill 10,837 people in the U.S. according to the CDC, we were told at the end of the freakout period that swine flu ended up being not so much worse than the regular seasonal flu.
Oh crap, you mean we freaked out for nothing? Shucks. I could have gone to Mexico.
Yeah, yeah, 11,000 people is a lot… but if you want to compare numbers, the CDC has also estimated that 36,000 Americans die from the seasonal flu each year. And just for fun, 443,000 die from smoking every year.
That’s over three times as many people dying from the regular seasonal flu (that no one flips out about) than H1N1. Forty times the number of people who have died from H1N1 are dying from smoking.
I actually found this article reporting that the CDC estimates that 17,000 Americans have died from H1N1. Although only 2,948 cases reported to the CDC have been confirmed H1N1-related deaths, the CDC estimates that the real death toll could be anywhere between 8,330 and 17,160.
Even if we take the high limit of the estimate (17,160), that’s still 25.8 times as many people dying from smoking, and twice as many people dying from seasonal flu, than pig flu. Commence freakout.
As if this post wasn’t full of great news already, I found this article, too! It’s about how the U.S. isn’t prepared for a bioterrorism attack! We’re going to die of swine flu, anthrax, and the plague!!
OK, we’re not going to die of these things… but I wish the greater public knew that.
Whether the public thinks we’ll survive bioterrorism or not, the point still stands — this country isn’t prepared for such an attack. The article points out that we basically sucked it up when it came to responding to the H1N1 extravaganza.
said the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism (whatever that is).
The article makes the point that we knew the swine flu epidemic was coming for months, and we still didn’t have vaccinations prepared for when widespread infection peaked. A bioterrorist attack is not going to have a warning like that, and yeah — we’ll be screwed.
It has never sounded so good to receive some anthrax in the mail, has it?
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