Swine Flu
Why does this continue to make the headlines, in Britain and elsewhere? It’s a typical example of baseless, media-catalysed hysteria. Amongst all the panicking, leafleting, quarantining and slaughtering, not a shred of evidence has emerged to suggest that swine flu is any more serious than seasonal flu.
Each serious infection has befallen a vulnerable victim, just as with standard flu and many other viral illnesses. Nobody has died in the UK. Nobody threatens to die. Meanwhile, the government is sending pamphlets to every household in the nation – 24 million leaflets, because a handful of people have a nasty cold.
From what I can tell, we are the only European nation whose government is propagating this panic through written means. Anyone would think that swine flu made a convenient distraction.
July 14th, 2009 at 9:45 am
Matt,
You might like to review this post, in light of recent events?
Bigguss
July 14th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
I see your point, as it now seems like swine flu attacks the respiratory system in a more severe fashion than standard flu. But I still feel that a lot of the media hysteria is unjustified. Do we know that more people have died from swine flu than would have died from a comparable outbreak of ’standard’ seasonal flu? It’s certainly an unpleasant occurrence, but the fact remains that thousands die from flu every year and much less is made of it.