Fear focuses our attention.
It is a great motivator, teacher, and profit bringer to lots of stake holders.
This season’s great fear is the swine flu, a.k.a., the H1N1/09 virus (new year, new tag).
But is extraordinary fear justified? Or is this just another predictable flu season?
According to Time magazine, “the disease has spread faster in six weeks than past pandemics had spread in six months.” The U.S. Center for Disease Control estimates over one million Americans are already infected.
And, according to an Associated Press article, “U.S. Health officials say the swine flu could strike up to 40 percent of Americans over the next two years, and as many as several hundred thousand could die if a vaccine campaign and other measures aren’t successful.”
Reason for alarm or reach for an aspirin?
The Director-General of the World Health Organization has declared the virus a “pandemic,” issuing the highest level alert available to her. While thus far, the mortality rate is mild, fear has generated alarming headlines, contentious debates, and whispers about “vaccine wars,” pitting the “have” countries against the “have nots.”
Britain is the first country out of the gate. This hyperactivity among the British press was possibly in reaction to the news that 100,000 cases of the swine flu had been confirmed in just one week’s time—double the previous week’s record. It also doesn’t hurt that this crisis eclipses Parliament’s recent embarrassing “expenses scandal.” All efforts by the government are now on prevention and protection...
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