Flu? Panic?
I read that “cybercriminals are exploiting the worldwide hysteria over swine flu to peddle fake drugs and steal credit card details”. Symantec’s Mayur Kulkarni wrote in a blog that “the scare has spawned a spamming frenzy, like sharks smelling blood in the water”.
All of which underlines my curiosity about why we are panicking at all. Where is the sense of proportion? It’s not that I want to make light of those people who have been very ill – or even died – as a result of this disease. And I do presume that the WHO knows what is talking about, and that there is indeed some cause for concern. But what has actually happened so far? When I last read the figures (and that was yesterday, so they may have gone up since then, of course) seven people are confirmed as having died of swine flu so far in Mexico, over a period of a few weeks. Mexico City is said to be nearly at a standstill. But wait a minute! In a city the size of Mexico City somewhere getting on for 1000 people must die of one thing or another every day, some of them, no doubt, from flu. In America, more than 60,000 people die of flu each year – between 150 and 200 a day. Every one of those, presumably, was as unwanted as the deaths from swine flu. So far swine flu has been responsible for perhaps a few tens of deaths.
Once again, let’s not make light of it, and if the WHO is issuing warnings, no doubt we should take them seriously. Perhaps things will get very, very, very much worse than they are now. But why is there such a panic? Do we find this more comforting to worry about than things like the global financial crisis, Robert Mugabe, the Gaza Strip of the CIA’s “renditions”? Perhaps we feel that by going around in a surgical mask we can do something about this one, where we feel relatively powerless in other areas. Or do we somehow want there to be a pandemic? Does swine flu promise to satisfy an obscure yet powerful need for danger and alarm?
Perhaps there is something I’m failing to understand, and I do hope that I’m not tempting fate when I ask – what is all the panic about?
“The panic” is about news reporters who are salivating for a story. On a different tack–the other day, a woman I work with went off on a little swine flu soliloquy that was pretty funny. She is African-American, about 50 years old, originally from Mississippi. “Well, the swine flu is here,” she said, after we had exchanged our morning greetings (“here” is in the USA). “They say more and more people are getting it, and a little boy in Texas has died.” She paused for a minute. “Those swine had better just keep their things to themselves,” she concluded, shaking her head.
I’m voting for “Those swine had better just keep their things to themselves” as quote of the week.