4/30/09

Where is Sanity?




"Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling! Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes... The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!"

The news is out and it's not good. We are just one level away from a full blown pandemic. People are worried about this swine flu that has, so far, has not killed any U.S. citizens. The one death, in texas, turned out to be Mexican national, on a visit in the U.S. with parents. All U.S. citizens who have contracted it have gotten over it.

Yet schools all over Texas are temporarily closing their doors. My workplace has suspended any plant meetings for two weeks. (At the same time, they have not told people to take staggered lunch breaks, so everyone still congregates in the break room at the same time.)

According to an article on theage , the World Health Organisation claims that there are only 7 confirmed deaths from this new swine flu, and all of them in Mexico. it also says that only countries who have had contact with Mexican nationals have contracted the disease. In other words, these countries who are banning meat and killing pigs are overreacting.

Panic in the streets is never good. If we start cringing every time someone near us coughs (as someone across the table is doing at this very instant) then we might as well lock ourselves in a hermetically sealed room until the air raid sirens tell us that it's safe to come out.

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