Swine Flu

Posted on May 1, 2009 in Swine Flu

For the past several days, I have been tweeting against the notion that we were on the verge of a [[pandemic]] on the scale of the 1918 epidemic that killed up to a quarter of the earth’s population at the time. I haven’t heard the rumor that Obama has been spraying an aerosol version of the virus at rock concerts yet, but there are whispers that this is all an attempt by the pharmaceutical companies to cash in on a panic or by the Obama administration to push through the nomination of [[Kathleen Sebelius]] as Health and Human Services Secretary.

As events unfold, I am more convinced that there won’t be a huge flu epidemic here in the USA, not because the potential hasn’t been there but because officials of the WHO and the CDC are being allowed to react to the problem as they are supposed to. A potential Class 5 hurricane of a virus has been spotted in Mexico and this time the government has prepared itself for it.

The name of the game is to keep the numbers down by closing schools when a case is reported and by educating the public. Smaller numbers mean, among other things, less of a strain on stockpiles of the antivirals that have been shown to affect the H1N1 virus. If in six months time, the Right is yelling even louder that this was an overreaction, then Sebelius and the CDC can declare a victory. The epidemic will have been averted.