A wise man once said: "We have nothing to fear, but fear itself." And looking at the numbers logged thus far by the H1N1 Swine Flu, (just 160 confirmed cases and 1 death) , I would have to say this is all much ado about nothing. Our society is like a hypersensitive nervous system, with the Internet, Myspace, cell phones and Twitter spreading bad news at light speed.
An interesting story appeared in early May when the Twitter flu headline site for Veratect, a data mining company, began to get a lot of traffic. It seems the company had provided early warning to both WHO and the CDC about unusual reports of severe respiratory illness with flu-like symptoms appearing in rural areas of Mexico at least 10 days before the outbreak occurred, but the warnings were apparently not acted upon. I guess early warning systems are only useful if you pay attention to them!
But the story certainly got plenty of attention by April 25th when it became clear that there was some kind of health emergency underway in Mexico City. A week later, while the virus has spread very fast, it simply isn't killing people or becoming a real Pandemic threat--not even close--and scientists now say it may be much weaker than normal flu. Consider what it would be like if we covered the onset of our normal flu season each year like this. Twitter updates as the first victims fall ill in late September, back to school canceled, by October the World series is in jeopardy as tens of thousands of cases are reported daily in all 50 states. If we directed our attention on it, the flu season would appear worse than the black plague!
I wrote an article some time ago about how people consistently fear the wrong things, blowing some threats way out of proportion, while ignoring real serious threats. It was written in the middle of the Bush/Cheney years, when fear was used as a policy tool almost daily. Here's the link. It may give you a new perspective on this, and you can realize that "Love in the Time of Swine Flu" is entirely possible.
An interesting story appeared in early May when the Twitter flu headline site for Veratect, a data mining company, began to get a lot of traffic. It seems the company had provided early warning to both WHO and the CDC about unusual reports of severe respiratory illness with flu-like symptoms appearing in rural areas of Mexico at least 10 days before the outbreak occurred, but the warnings were apparently not acted upon. I guess early warning systems are only useful if you pay attention to them!
But the story certainly got plenty of attention by April 25th when it became clear that there was some kind of health emergency underway in Mexico City. A week later, while the virus has spread very fast, it simply isn't killing people or becoming a real Pandemic threat--not even close--and scientists now say it may be much weaker than normal flu. Consider what it would be like if we covered the onset of our normal flu season each year like this. Twitter updates as the first victims fall ill in late September, back to school canceled, by October the World series is in jeopardy as tens of thousands of cases are reported daily in all 50 states. If we directed our attention on it, the flu season would appear worse than the black plague!
I wrote an article some time ago about how people consistently fear the wrong things, blowing some threats way out of proportion, while ignoring real serious threats. It was written in the middle of the Bush/Cheney years, when fear was used as a policy tool almost daily. Here's the link. It may give you a new perspective on this, and you can realize that "Love in the Time of Swine Flu" is entirely possible.
