Underlying Health Problems
This is scarier than swine flu. What do they mean by ‘underlying health problems’? Diabetes? Cancer? A bad cough in 1997? It’s all so vague.
The media coverage of swine flu is terrifying.
- Teenage girl with swine flu dies
- Swine flu ‘is unstoppable’
- Woman gave birth before flu death
- UK swine flu deaths jump to 29
- GP and child with swine flu die
One glimpse at the headlines and I’m paranoid. If I took this at face value I wouldn’t leave my house in the morning (not that it takes much for me to stay in bed, I love a good lie in). We’re not getting facts, we’re getting sensationalism. The total number of deaths, presumably from swine flu, is 29.
According to Explaining pandemic flu: A guide from the Chief Medical Officer (October 2005), ‘ordinary’ flu, which occurs during the winter in the UK, affects 10-15% of the UK population and kills around 12,000 every year. We’re not freaking out over that though, are we? There are no masks or hand gel passed around for ordinary flu, even though it infects and kills thousands more than swine flu.How much money is this mass hysteria costing us? I spent three hours in the waiting room of my doctors surgery because two out of the three GPs were on house calls to patients with suspected swine flu. Every time someone in my office sneezes, another says ‘watch it, you might have swine flu’. Then there’s the panic, the cries of ‘don’t go near them’, then you’re locking them in the cupboard while you search for the matches and lighter fluid.
Ok, maybe it’s not that bad, but the panic is there. People in other offices are being sent home when they show possible symptoms. How much money is that costing the company? Someone has a runny nose? Shut down the department!
In the supermarket I noticed there were cleaning products labelled ‘with added flu protection’. Oh really? Have you added a little something extra to combat the flu virus? Really? Or are you jumping on the infected bandwagon and cashing in on public fears?
There are even calls to shut down schools until they can ‘control the spread’. Ridiculous. Swine flu is out there and most of us will probably catch it at some point. It’s just what happens.
An outbreak of nits at your school? Everyone caught them. Your partner has sickness and diarrhoea? You’ll probably catch it. Someone in your work has a cold? You’re in for it next. We can’t stop moving because there’s a new virus on the go.
Close schools? Close offices? What’s the next step?
A siren in the middle of the night to let us know there’s a suspected swine flu sufferer in the vicinity? We’ll be asked to draw our ‘swine flu protection curtains’, wash our hands in special ‘swine flu approved soap’ and enclose ourselves in a special ‘swine flu protective bodysuit’. Then we’ll be asked to go outside and beat the sufferer to death with a ‘swine flu retardant stick’, just to be sure.
It’s a mild flu. Unfortunately, some people have died from it. And that really is unfortunate and sad, awful even. But it shouldn’t stop us from going about our business. The media are reporting it like it’s the end of days. When will they move on to something else?
