A pandemic of panic -- are we dead yet?

[alienlovechild 75]

We haven't seen a panic quite like this one since the last one. SARS was once thought to be the ultimate panic, though the longest running panic was the AIDS scare, when big media set out to convince us that "now we are all at risk." SARS was never a threat in the United States, and worth the P-word only in China and even there a risk confined mostly to people who sleep with their chickens. You can step in all manner of unpleasant things in a chicken house. AIDS continues to be a succession of personal tragedies, but it has lost its power to terrorize continents. Worse, it lost its media cachet. Besides, nobody at the New York Times or at CNN wants to credit George W. Bush with anything good, or even acknowledge how he has become a hero in Africa for the American campaign against AIDS in Africa that has saved millions of lives.

But here we go again. The World Health Organization is heroically feeding the hysteria with the warning on front pages across the globe and trumpeted by hundreds of television talking heads: "The World Health Organization has warned that the [swine flu] virus has the potential to become a pandemic." The words "flu" and "pandemic" are such powerful scare words that almost nobody notices the accompanying weasel words "may," "could," "might," "potentially" and "possibly" that would stand out in bright red and green neon to the skeptical eye of a wizened old city editor. Alas, most of the wizened old city editors really are in the graveyard, having succumbed more to world-weariness than to fashionable diseases. The director of the World Influenza Center in London says of the outbreak, such as it is so far: "It's difficult to look on the bright side."

No, it's actually not difficult. About 2,000 persons in Mexico are down with flu, and about 150 have died. That's a mortality rate of about 7 percent. Sad, even tragic, but not exactly the most lethal flu virus we've ever seen. There's no mortality rate in the United States because no one has died. Only a few, very few, cases have been reported, and nearly all are described as "mild." You have to give the medical bureaucrats and the media credit for chutzpah to think they can keep such thin soup on the panic menu.

There are no firm estimates or even hopeful guesses of how many Americans are likely to contract flu this spring, but fortunately the ratio of panic to reality is not governed by facts. In the early hours of counting, barely 50 cases had been reported in the United States, and only two in Britain - that's 2, not 2,000 or even 200. About 300,000 to 500,000 cases of flu are reported every year in the United States, where 10 percent to 20 percent of the population comes down with the sore throat, coughing and achy bones of flu. Of those, 30,000 to 40,000 die. What we have so far in the United States is a 50-case panic, caused by a remarkably mild variant of the flu.

The medical researchers say it might mutate. Or it might not. If it does, it might, possibly, maybe, potentially be the worst killer since the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. Or it might not. Researchers are working on the vaccine, and the media is working on the panic. We may not get a vaccine, but soon there won't be a dry pair of pants on six continents.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/a...re-we-dead-yet/

[AlHayatZween 2]

i feel the same way. at work, units are furiously developing pandemic emergency plans.

i hate to think of people being sick... but the media frenzy seems a bit over the top.

[Ban Hammer 13,352]

sars from the north, swine flu from the south.......hmmmm....i sense a conspiracy here.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

The news media overreacts to everything. Why is this a surprise to a journalist?

[Chica Yeyé 41]

i feel the same way. at work, units are furiously developing pandemic emergency plans.

i hate to think of people being sick... but the media frenzy seems a bit over the top.

sister, thee is wise

[one...two...tree 2,762]

I think I know what this is? The newspapers, like Washington Times are a dying breed. Everything is going digital now. With more people getting their news sources digitally and more news sources via the web, it can seem like an information overkill. The newspapers used to carry the clout when it came to breaking news, then the networks stole some of their thunder...and now, digital media, has completely made traditional newspapers irrelevant. This journalist is just pissy about it.

[fozzie 41]

Incidence extrapolations for USA for Flu: 97,920,000 per year

Prevalance of Flu: Every year, 10 percent to 20 percent of Americans get sick with the flu (influenza). (Source: excerpt from Focus On The Flu: NIAID) ...

In the United States, approximately 25 percent of the population has flu-associated illness annually, leading to an average of 20,000 to 40,000 deaths per year. (Source: excerpt from Microbes in Sickness and in Health - Publications, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases: NIAID) ...

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 35 to 50 million Americans come down with the flu during each flu season, which typically lasts from November to March. (Source: excerpt from The Flu, NIAID Fact Sheet: NIAID)

http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/f/flu/stats.htm

So, if you take the worst case scenario from those ranges of figures, 40,000 deaths from 35m cases its just less than 0.1% mortality. So swine flu's 7% is a huge jump in mortality rate. If there are 35m cases of swine flu (unlikely I know) the mortality would be 2.45m deaths.

I agree that the media is over hyping the swine flu but that doesn't mean it isnt wise to take precautions.

Edited April 28, 2009 by fozzie

[Empress of Groovy 373]

Let us not forget about anthrax!

[AlHayatZween 2]

Let us not forget about anthrax!

i think someone said that Anthrax is the antidote...

[Ban Hammer 13,352]

Let us not forget about anthrax!

i had no idea joyce had such varied musical talents.

[Chica Yeyé 41]

Let us not forget about anthrax!

i had no idea joyce had such varied musical talents.

There is much more to Joyce than her hiper-sex appeal....

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Let us not forget about anthrax!

i think someone said that Anthrax is the antidote...

[Empress of Groovy 373]

Let us not forget about anthrax!

i had no idea joyce had such varied musical talents.

There is much more to Joyce than her hiper-sex appeal....

Joyce has suggested that Anthrax incorporate the xylophone into their studio work, but no luck as of yet! But they sure went crazy over her Cool Whip creations!

[The_Dude 1,142]

sars from the north, swine flu from the south.......hmmmm....i sense a conspiracy here.

Seeing as SARS was during Bush's administration and this is under Obama's administration, this could be the mother of all cooperation amongst the political parties!!!!

[Peikko 1,575]

It's weird if you think about it - the reality is that a flu pandemic is potentially very serious. Of course, no one knows exactly how it will play out in terms of numbers of people getting sick, or the severity of the sickness, that is unknowable and if the WHO and individual countries produce a successful strategy of dealing with it, there will not be a huge problem - well not in countries that have access to a decent standard of health care. In third world countries, well the chances are that things will be much, much worse and the risk of large numbers of deaths is considerably greater.

That said, in the west, we have information overload, sensationalism journalism and overkill on this story which has an upside, there is unlikely to be major panic and the nasty consequences thereof. On the other hand, there could be a level of complacency where people fail to take the necessary and sensible measures and the flu could get a real grip and cause a lot of unpleasantness, if not death.

In the third world countries, everything is very much in the lap of the gods as it were - or at the behest of the generosity of the industrialised and wealthy countries coupled with a huge dose of good/bad luck

What is false, is that this is an invention of government, a vehicle to manipulate the masses, or even a deliberate action by the media to do whatever it is those suffering from paranoiac delusion suspect them of doing.