Oh no, Swine Flu! Quick, see that you are unprotected. Run. Hide. Close everything.... and on and on the media drones on. Perhaps it's time to take a more pragmatic, nay, realistic, look at this Pandemic.
In the article posted here:
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2009/04/30/20090430azswine-ON-CR.html
It states, "There are now more than 110 confirmed cases of the virus in the United States; people have fallen ill in 15 states." So let's do some math. I'll even jack up the numbers to illustrate my point. Let's say there are 30,000 cases in the US. Now, based on some estimates, there are 300 million people, legal or otherwise, living in the US. So the math would be 30,000 divided by 300 million to derive the percentage of the population affected by this Pandemic.
The answer is...
No peeking...
Doesn't even reach 1%. In fact it is: .01%. And remember, there are ONLY 110+ cases, NOT 30,000!
Now, let's take a look at last year. Boy howdy, this is gonna shock you! According the CDC, and here's the link:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5725a5.htm
During September 30, 2007--May 17, 2008,** World Health Organization and National Respiratory and Enteric Virus Surveillance System collaborating laboratories in the United States tested 225,329 specimens for influenza viruses; 39,827 (18%) were positive (Figure 1). Of the positive specimens, 28,263 (71%) were influenza A viruses, and 11,564 (29%) were influenza B viruses. Among the influenza A viruses, 8,290 (29%) were subtyped; 2,175 (26%) were influenza A (H1N1), and 6,115 (74%) were influenza A (H3N2) viruses. The proportion of specimens testing positive for influenza first exceeded 10% during the week ending January 12, 2008 (week 2), peaked at 32% during the week ending February 9, 2008 (week 6), and declined to <10%>
So what does it mean? Well, there are two things. First, the data was collected from Sep 30th, 2007 to May 17th, 2008, where just over 250,000 (¼ million) samples were tested. Of that, 28,263 were Influenza A and 11,564 were Influenza B, for a total of 39,827 positive tests. Okay, that could be considered a lot in the US where, again, there are 300 million people. Not! so are you ready for the shocker? Here it is: of the 28,263 Influenza positives, there were "2,175 (26%) were influenza A (H1N1)". Doesn't that H1N1 look familiar some how? Oh yes, I remember now. The CDC says it's, "H1N1 Flu (Swine Flu)". Here's the link: http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/. Don't take my word for it; they wrote it.
So how is it we have a International Pandemic, which was elevated yesterday, when we haven't even reached last year's recorded levels?
I'm thinking the Obama Administration is trying to play a "slight of hand" act. Something else must be going on if we're all concerned with a 100+ cases of the flu when we've already achieved THAT flu in the thousands last year. What's that I hear? Hmmm, my money being flushed down the toilet...again!
