THE SWINE FLU MIGHT NOT BE A PANDEMIC AFTER ALL

No big surprise, for my first blog on the swine flu was on April 24, hinted just so when the story broke. Here is a quote:

So, before you get too uptight about travelling anywhere or contemplate wearing some kind of mask in public because a few hundred have passed away from the Mexican flu, remember that the world-wide annual death rate from the flu can be up to ONE MILLION.That's the high norm, but hardly a pandemic. Thus, be mildly concerned, but, heavens, don't worry. All governments will hyper-react to this episode because, first, you can't take a chance, but, two, if less than one million die worldwide over the next year from the flu, they can take credit for responsibly preventing an epidemic.

Possibly because of 9/11, society now has a tendency to overreact to anything that directly threatens them. We don't care too much about global warming because sea level rise, as a worst case scenario, will be about a third of an inch a year, and could with equal probability be a third of an inch a decade. The temperature rise is predicted to be between 0.025 and 0.10 degrees F per year. People can't feel or discern this kind of change. This attitude is further reinforced by the disinformation campaign paid for by fossil fuel companies, sort of like Republicans orchestrating public forums on how terrible that health legislation is, and PEOPLE BELIEVE WHAT IS FED TO THEM. Unbelievable.

But swine flu? With the potential to kill children? Mothers get very protective. Too much government is not enough.

A little more than a month later, on June 3, the Huffington Post published my thoughts on this subject, and here is a portion:

1. The regular flu kills one in a thousand, while the swine flu seems closer to one in a hundred. That previous avian flu of a decade ago has a 60% mortality rate, but it is not all that contagious. The fear is that the swine flu will morph into a more dangerous form. The potential of this happening is very low, and, in any case, it is appearing that all 50 or so variations might turn out to be treatable with one vaccine. So, certainly, continue the vigilance and spend my tax dollars to develop a common vaccine, but don't close down countries and schools, and, by the way, tourists can safely return to Mexico and Hawaii.

2. The numbers are embarrassingly obvious. Since the so-called epidemic was announced only a little more than a month ago, we have had about 500 cases and 3 deaths a day. I wouldn't want to be one of those statistics, but consider that a million people daily contract some form of flu and at least a thousand die, every day, usually from complications (heart, pneumonia, etc.). This terrifying swine flu is thus hardly detectable noise. I might further add that traffic fatalities number 3000/day, but we drive on.

Why, then, has the world, epitomized by the World Health Organization (which can best be appreciated if you know the internal workings of the United Nations), gone bonkers over the swine flu? I would like to speculate on the reason. I think it has to do with our political way of life influenced by the world wide web (WWW), as sensitized by the terroristic act of September 11, 2001. Add the palpable need to cover your rear.

My most recent blog on this subject was on November 4, and I again quote:

AND, OH, BY THE WAY, IN ALMOST THE SAME BREATH, THE CDC ALSO SAID THAT, ACTUALLY, THE H1N1 SWINE FLU HAD PEAKED IN MID-OCTOBER AND WAS ON ITS WAY OUT.

This was just after:

October 24, (when) President Barack Obama made the H1N1 Swine Flu pandemic a national emergency. According to the White House, it's designed to "allow hospitals to better handle the surge in patients" by allowing them to bypass certain federal laws. What?

What is happening here?

Anyway, no big surprise, but today, the local newspaper had a big front page headline:

Experts see low swine flu toll

To quote Rob Stein of the Washington Post:

With the second wave of H1N1 infections having crested in the United States, leading epidemiologists are predicting that the pandemic could end up ranking as the mildest since modern medicine began documenting influenza outbreaks.

Did the UN and national governments overreact. Probably. Is this bad. Not necessarily, for people got educated and more took precautions, including vaccinations. There was always the chance that the worse could have happened.

Want to read about a real pandemic? From Wikipedia:

The 1918 flu pandemic (commonly referred to as the Spanish Flu) was an influenza pandemic that spread to nearly every part of the world. It was caused by an unusually virulent and deadly influenza A virus strain of subtype H1N1. Historical and epidemiological data are inadequate to identify the geographic origin of the virus.^[3] Most of its victims were healthy young adults, in contrast to most influenza outbreaks which predominantly affect juvenile, elderly, or otherwise weakened patients. The flu pandemic has also been implicated in the sudden outbreak of encephalitis lethargica in the 1920s.^[4]

The pandemic lasted from March 1918 to June 1920,^[5] spreading even to the Arctic and remote Pacific islands. It is estimated that anywhere from 50 to 100 million people were killed worldwide which is from three to seven times the casualties of the First World War (15 million), making it the most deadly natural disaster in human history.^{[6][7][8][9][10]} An estimated 50 million people, about 3% of the world's population (approximately 1.6 billion at the time), died of the disease. An estimated 500 million, or 1/3 were infected.^[7]

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The Dow Jones Industrials sunk 104 to 10286, with world markets all also falling. Gold dropped $38/toz to $1130 and oil further settled to $73/barrel.

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