The Swine Flu has officially been declared by the WHO as a pandemic.
This from the Economist, ``THE World Health Organisation raised the threat level for swine flu on Thursday June 11th to pandemic status, the highest possible. It is the first influenza pandemic since 1968, when Hong Kong flu killed 1m people. Almost 28,000 cases of swine flu and 141 deaths have been confirmed in 74 countries since the A(H1N1) virus was first identified in Mexico in late March. In Australia alone, the number of people infected has jumped from around 500 to 1,200 in one week. However, in a new paper published in Nature on Thursday, researchers suggest that the strain had probably been in existence for months before it was isolated, highlighting the need for good surveillance."
I'm no health expert, but I remain a skeptic.
The figures are telling; 141 out of 28,000 cases translates to a .5% fatality rate. The 1918 pandemic had a case fatality (CF) ratio of 3-6% according to wikipedia.org.
Moreover, 28,000 cases in 3 months against a world population of 6.7 billion doesn't seem to project anywhere near the same degree of impact relative to the 1918 case.
Then, some 25 million people had reportedly been killed during the first 25 weeks of the outbreak according to wikipedia.org.
Of the world population of approximately 1.6 billion, estimated fatalities for the 2 year lifespan of the pandemic reached a third or about 500 million-again from wikipedia.org.
Under the same rate, we would now have tens of millions of infected people and casualties that would run in the hundreds of thousands if not in millions.
Of course, one may argue that- this is what the pandemic alert is for-to prevent the spread of the disease and fatalities!
But where should the line be drawn between the use of "fear" from pandemics (or as an excuse) for expanded government control of our lives and the real menace of swine flu as pandemic? Or how do we know if the pandemic alert is genuinely about disease prevention or about some implicit interests being foisted on us by government/s? How do we know if this isn't about propping up sales of pharmaceuticals, some of which are said to be partly owned by certain politicos or a thrust to impose global taxes or other concerns outside of the pandemic issue?
See past articles:
Swine Flu: Mostly A Media Fuss
Swine Flu: The Politics of Fear and Control
Swine Flu: The Black Swan That Wasn’t
This from the Economist, ``THE World Health Organisation raised the threat level for swine flu on Thursday June 11th to pandemic status, the highest possible. It is the first influenza pandemic since 1968, when Hong Kong flu killed 1m people. Almost 28,000 cases of swine flu and 141 deaths have been confirmed in 74 countries since the A(H1N1) virus was first identified in Mexico in late March. In Australia alone, the number of people infected has jumped from around 500 to 1,200 in one week. However, in a new paper published in Nature on Thursday, researchers suggest that the strain had probably been in existence for months before it was isolated, highlighting the need for good surveillance."I'm no health expert, but I remain a skeptic.
The figures are telling; 141 out of 28,000 cases translates to a .5% fatality rate. The 1918 pandemic had a case fatality (CF) ratio of 3-6% according to wikipedia.org.
Moreover, 28,000 cases in 3 months against a world population of 6.7 billion doesn't seem to project anywhere near the same degree of impact relative to the 1918 case.
Then, some 25 million people had reportedly been killed during the first 25 weeks of the outbreak according to wikipedia.org.
Of the world population of approximately 1.6 billion, estimated fatalities for the 2 year lifespan of the pandemic reached a third or about 500 million-again from wikipedia.org.
Under the same rate, we would now have tens of millions of infected people and casualties that would run in the hundreds of thousands if not in millions.
Of course, one may argue that- this is what the pandemic alert is for-to prevent the spread of the disease and fatalities!
But where should the line be drawn between the use of "fear" from pandemics (or as an excuse) for expanded government control of our lives and the real menace of swine flu as pandemic? Or how do we know if the pandemic alert is genuinely about disease prevention or about some implicit interests being foisted on us by government/s? How do we know if this isn't about propping up sales of pharmaceuticals, some of which are said to be partly owned by certain politicos or a thrust to impose global taxes or other concerns outside of the pandemic issue?
See past articles:
Swine Flu: Mostly A Media Fuss
Swine Flu: The Politics of Fear and Control
Swine Flu: The Black Swan That Wasn’t
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