Epidemic: Spreading rapidly and extensively by infection and affecting many individuals in an area or a population at the same time.I have yet to meet anyone that knows anyone that has the Swine Flu and I live in Texas. You know, that area just above Mexico.
When does the Word Health Organization decide to do things like name something epidemic or pandemic or whatever they name it? Do they do it when they need governmental money and donations? As in, "We need to find the scary sounding virus of the day so we can fill our coffers."
I read somewhere that there have been about 29,000 cases of Swine Flu reported in the last 2 months. Of that, I believe that 144 or so have died. So WHO has named it an epidemic.
In 2005, 1.1 million people died from diabetes. That adds up to about 91,000 per month. That's not "infections" that's "deaths".
Let's put our money where the crisis is.
Of course, with an aging population it's probably better for the governments of the world to let nature takes it's course and cull the population a bit. It would certainly cut down on retirement benefits.
Read all about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flu_epidemic
ReplyDeleteEspecially read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic
The 1918 pandemic killed >50 million people. The total estimated deaths (military & civilian) associated with World War II is estimated at between 50 & 60 million. Governments are (rightly) pretty paranoid. With cancer, diabetes, etc., incidence and mortality rates are fairly constant and things are at least somewhat predictable (no less tragic and massive for that). With a pandemic, you have the possibility of many millions of people from across the population getting very, very sick, and many of them dying, all of a sudden.
Imagine what that would to do the economy that's already reeling. The healthcare systems across the world would be flattened, and businesses would be nuked. In 1918, it's estimated that between 3 & 6% of the world's population died, and about a third of the population became infected. 5% of today's population is >330 million. That's more than the entire population of the US. Dead. Just try to wrap your head around that.
Of course, I don't think that the new H1N1 strain is going to be anywhere near that virulent, but I actually really want WHO to be cautious on this. The damage done by a little virus like this is orders of magnitude worse than anything al quaeda, the axis of evil and Dick Cheney could ever do if they got together for one serious party.
Dick Cheney is an Aquarius.
ReplyDeleteI respect caution as much as the next person.
Perhaps my irritation is more at the media.