The text message was simple but telling: “90 people get swine flu and everyone is wearing face masks. Millions of people have AIDS but no one is wearing condoms.”
The text message was simple but telling: “90 people get swine flu and everyone is wearing face masks. Millions of people have AIDS, but no one is wearing condoms.”
There is no way that the actual incidence of swine flu could have kept up with the hype. For at least a week, the news has been dominated by swine flu. Local news has devoted 15 of its 30 minutes to the threatening pandemic. Breathless television commentators, their dour faces telegraphing the seriousness of their news, let us know that swine flu was coming and it could be something that would sweep the globe, straining the world’s ability to combat it.
Schools are closing, emergency rooms are overflowing, and yes, grown-ups who should know better are walking around wearing surgical masks.
You would think that millions of people had died from the disease. In fact, only one death has been reported in the U.S., and it was a toddler who came to the U.S. from Mexico. Certainly we should not dismiss that death, and we should do what we can to make sure the disease doesn’t spread unchecked.
But c’mon now! More people in the U.S. died from the regular seasonal flu this last fortnight (about 1,200) than from swine flu. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 36,000 people die from seasonal flu each year.
Yet there was the president of the United States, Barack Obama, on television in prime time, reassuring the country about the federal response to swine flu. There was Janet Napolitano, the director of the Department of Homeland Security, and Kathleen Sebellius, the new secretary of Health and Human Services, letting the country know that there would be enough medicine to deal with the disease.
You would think that millions of people were coming down with swine flu. Instead, there are 16 confirmed cases in Chicago. Sixteen.
The ridiculousness reached an even higher level when swine flu was renamed H1N1 flu because the pork industry was beginning to suffer because people were connecting swine flu to pigs. Sales of bacon and ham and sausage were suffering, even though there is no connection between pigs and the disease. It was first discovered in pigs so that is how the name stuck.
The hype is irresponsible because it masks all of the other pandemics that are tearing through the populace.
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