Apparently Swine Flu is a world wide pandemic. 717 cases and 20 deaths with 19 of those deaths in Mexico City and the 20th was a Mexican toddler in Texas.
That warrants a pandemic fear? I don't think so. Let's look at the numbers.
The normal flu, not Bird Flu or this Swine Flu/H1N1, kills about 36,000 in the United States along according to CDC. If you type in the question "how many people are in the United States" in ask.com you will receive the answer 300,000,000. If we take this to be true, than 0.012% of the US population dies from the flu. Now, if you count that one death as a US death, than 0.00000003% of the US population has died from Swine Flu.
Oh wait, I'm not done yet. If you type in the question "how many people are in the world" ask.com will give you the answer 6,446,131,400. This means that 0.000000031% of the world population has died from Swine Flu and that 0.000011% of the world's population has caught the Swine Flu.
...? We are panicking over this??!!
This is not the Spanish flu which killed 600,000 people in 1918. And this is not going to turn into it because 20 people have died from it. 20. I'm pretty sure that within the first few weeks of the Spanish flu (which happened in the winter) it killed 100 some people.
We are in the summer months at the tail end of flu season. The flu virus doesn't live in hot weather.
Three things have to happen in order for me to be remotely afraid of this damn thing. 1) More than 20 people will have to die within a weeks period. This has been in the news for about 2 weeks not and only 20 people have died. Kick that number up to 200+ in two weeks and maybe I will be freaked. 2) People outside Mexico City will have to die. The city has 2 billion people and it does not have the best sanitation record. Of course people will get sick. 3) The virus numbers will increase during the summer months. I'm not talking about 200 more cases within the next two weeks, I'm talking about the number hitting over 1,000 in June.
Experts are saying the best way to avoid catching the Swine Flu is to wash your hands and stay home if you're not feeling that well. But that is also the best advice for avoiding catching a cold, the normal flu, strep throat, mono, and any other sickness that is spread by people breathing on other people.
In my mind, we should be freaking out about a normal flu pandemic which kills a higher percentage of Americans.
John Stewart said it best on The Daily Show. "Health experts and reporters are saying not to panic. But do you watch your own damn network?! It is all you guys talk about! Of course people are going to panic!"
This is why I haven't been watching the news recently. All they are talking about is the Swine Flu and Congress trying to get a playoff system for Division I college football.
What about the economic shithole are country is in? Or the war in Iraq which is kills more people than the Swine Flu?
But nope, our news networks decide to cause unnecessary panic.
Stupid.
~My existence is the product of the air that cools my lungs and the survival of experience
No comments:
Post a Comment