Do you have swine flu? better check this link…
But seriously, people need to chill on this whole swine flu panic thing. The real deal of it all is that more people die from just the regular flu every year and scientists are seeing this “swine flu” strain as relatively mild. According to this article in the L.A. Times, genetic data indicate this outbreak won’t be as deadly as that of 1918, or even the average winter flu season. I know that i saw news reports are saying that like 1700 people have died from the swine flu worldwide or have it or whatever.. and 100 people in Mexico died from it, but those numbers are nothing compared to 2 MILLION people dying in a flu epidemic in 1957.
I blame the internet. well, i blame the internet for a lot of things, and i’m partly joking here… but the instant communcation and networking of the internet has caused our entire world to shrink to the size of our computer monitor. If there was some flu outbreak in 1918 in random places all over the globe, back then there’s no way we would have known about it, or been able to instantly read hundreds of stories on it about things happening all over the globe. Back then things spread far slower and news was disseminated slower.. and people doing any kind of reporting or study on it probably wouldn’t have been able to put together a complete picture until a couple years if not 10-20 years after the thing is long over. Nowadays something can happen in a bunch of remote parts of the world and then we can put all that information together and start spotting trends or seeing things that aren’t there. Again, i’m not denying that this particular strain of flu might be sucky, but i just don’t really think it’s worth freaking out over. Even if in the off chance you do get actual swine flu, just take care of yourself like you would with a normal flu. Get rest, take vitamin C, keep your fever down, etc etc. Just common sense man.
Published April 30th, 2009 in news, observations and criticism. 1 Comment









