When I was reading through my old entries, I saw this one post that I had to comment on. We were search for pigs (actually pork, but we did understand the women when she was asking), because of swine flu! This was back in July of 2007, before the global panic; I didn’t even know what it was. At the time they were more concerned about the transfer of the virus to other livestock and had no concern for people in the least, funny how a year plus can change so much.
Back in the fall everything was about the H1N1, how to prevent it, who has it, how many have died. These days there is only remnants of the wide spread fear. Old signs up in the buses, the anti-bacterial gel bottles here and there, no one seems all that concerned anymore.
The death toll is nearly 16000 for 2009, but keep in mind in the US alone over 40 000 die per annum of the flu, so comparing the whole world to the US statistic (as we usually do) not so bad. Want to know why we freaked out... I'd say the media attention but hey what do I know :) . I do realize it was also because it was taking the lives of young healthy people as well, but the reality of it we need something to freak out about (war, virus, terrorism) for ratings so 2009 was all about the swine flu freak out. How many of you as of today are really all that worried about Swine flu? Not many I expect as its not being thrown in your faces every 2 seconds.
A nice cheerful subject for my first post... :)
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