As global panic over the swine flu continues to spread, I think more and more about the swine flu of 1976. In that case, the flu killed one person in the US and the panic left 500 paralyzed. Up until now, I have been focusing on showing the facts, to help people realize this situation isn’t nearly as bad as everyone keeps saying it is. Today, I want to talk about it from a bit of a different perspective. I am not an expert, so I honestly don’t know how bad this flu is. But I know plenty of people that are suffering from the panic, even though they’ve never been within 500 miles of a confirmed case of the actual virus. My message today is that, whether or not the flu ends up being a major catastrophe, the response will be unless we can get ourselves under control.
My husband worked a 12 hour shift in the emergency room last night. As I mentioned before, we live across the border from Mexico, so the whole paranoia feels very close. It is not. There have been no confirmed cases here or across the border. The radius of non-contamination extends for hundreds of miles. Despite that, the ER was overrun. We’re talking about a day shift on a Wednesday. None of the doctors can remember the line of emergencies extending so far out the door. I asked my husband, “It was all flu-like symptoms?” He responded, “Yes…well, no. But we sure had a hard time weeding through the people to find the ones that had a real complaint.”
He told me that the doctors had called the lab a week ago to ask how many flu tests they could run. The lab said they could run as many as the doctors could order. Yesterday, the lab called the ED to say they were dangerously short on supplies. And all of this is in a place with no confirmed cases of this flu. Consider how many truly sick people will be unable to get help if the flu reaches us here.
Let’s take a look at a few facts…
Central Mexico has shut down. How long will the already weakened economy survive in such a state? Can the country take the loss of business? How many people will be denied needed medical services? How many people will go hungry? How many people will suffer much worse than flu symptoms without ever actually contracting the flu?
Several countries have banned pork from the United States and Mexico. In some places, people are randomly slaughtering pigs. In Egypt, where there have been NO confirmed cases, the government ordered the culling of 300,000 pigs. Farmers are rioting. How many people will loose their livelihood? How many will starve? How many people will suffer for a disease that is not food borne and has nothing to do with eating pork?
Just as concerning is the fact that governments are declaring states of emergency, giving themselves more power to trample on the rights of individuals to deal with this "crisis." Geez, if we have one more emergency, we might find ourselves living under a dictator.
This is all for a flu that some experts say is mild and less deadly than the regular flu season. Please, Please, Please….read this article.
Do not let panic lead to much worse consequences than the flu could hope to. Stay calm. Learn the facts. Find strength in knowledge.
No comments:
Post a Comment