The Sky Is Falling! The Sky Is Falling!

Is anyone else tired of hearing about the coming pandemic? I swear, I have to hear that word about 15 times a day – and it’s not like I have CNN on constantly. As a matter of fact, we don’t even get CNN so I don’t know if the media is whipping this up into a frenzy in the States like they are up here in Canada. I listen to the news for about 30 minutes when I am on the elliptical trainer, then another 30 minutes in the early evening before primetime TV comes on, then for about 10 minutes before I go to bed. So, in the course of about 1 ½ hours of news watching (including all the “breaking news” commercials) I get to hear about the pandemic constantly!! Enough already!!

Why are they so focused on a pandemic now? It must be because of the outbreak of the avian flu in all those chickens. Remember the Influenza Pandemic of 1918 that killed between 20 and 40 MILLION people? Me neither, but guess what? They figure that it originated in China in a rare genetic shift of the virus. This new virus was novel to everyone so there was no herd immunity left, plus we had people travelling all over the world because of the war so it spread quickly.

Now, we have this H5N1 bird flu virus. Outbreaks of this flu in birds occurred in 8 Asian countries (including China) in 2003/2004 – and even though the outbreaks were said to be under control it looks like they were ongoing. Even scarier, the first case to be spread from a bird to a human was seen during an outbreak of bird flu in poultry in Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region. Last time I looked, Hong Kong was in CHINA! What is it with China and deadly flu?

The H5N1 virus that is making people sick is resistant to the usual flu medications. There is NO vaccine available for people to combat this type of flu. So, once again we have a virus novel to everyone, no herd immunity, and nowadays we have people travelling all over the world, more quickly than ever, for business, pleasure, and once again, a war. If this pandemic does materialize it could make the pandemic of 1918 seem like a walk in the park.

Is this any reason for the media to focus obsessively on the possibility? What good does that do anyone? I for one would be happy if the CDC, the rest of the medical community, and the governments worked quietly on their little contingency plans – preparing a really good one to spring on the public when and if the time comes. I just don’t want to hear about “the horror of the coming pandemic – ohhh, woe is us” on the news constantly!!!!!