Maybe it's just me (it usually is) but it's the swell of panic over the Swine Flu scare that seems to be what's reaching epidemic proportions rather than the malady itself. 149 deaths in Mexico City as of this posting. 149 since the start of this craziness last week? More people than that have been killed in car accidents in just the past two days in the United States...and not a single death reported as yet here from the dreaded pigfluenza.
What's amazing to me is the mechanism that's fanned the panic flames. When the World Health Organization TRIED to get us all feverish and bothered over the bird flu, it ran for over two years and failed to really ignite a global scare. What is it about bovines versus avians that's making such a difference? Or maybe it's the state of the economy -- would people would rather focus on the level of the mercury in their thermometer rather than their bank balance right now?
It's given every news outlet from Alaska to Florida something to flap their gums about. And created an excuse for health officials from the local to the national level to scramble around and look worried. And what a hero the druglomerate is going to be that comes up with the "cure" for this piggy plague wannabe.
Until there's definitive word that we're all being stalked by the viral equivalent of Jack the Ripper, I'm just going to be using a touch more Purell after I shake hands.
> What is it about bovines versus avians that's making such a difference?
That should be 'porcine' (bovine = cows)
Posted by: x | May 31, 2009 at 06:08 PM