I keep waiting for something to prove me wrong about the overblown Swine Flu panic, but so far the public reaction continues to outrun the actual disease. I wasn't going to blog about it again, but the morning's news made me do it.
Summary:
The ENTIRE Ft. Worth Independent School District has CLOSED ITS DOORS for an ENTIRE WEEK - That's a total of 144 schools containing 80,000 students.
All because:
"The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta confirmed Thursday night that a 12-year-old girl who attends McLean Middle School had swine flu."
That's ONE kid, diagnosed with a flu virus that has largely been a non-event except for the media frenzy.
"Each school in the district will be scrubbed with a bleached-based cleaner to ensure that all surfaces, walls and common areas are disinfected."
A worker disinfects the exterior of a school in Richardson, Texas.
In addition to closing the schools in Tarrant County, Cleburne, and probably a host of other schools who will continue the freak-out - the entire State of Texas has declared a Disaster and cancelled all UIL sporting events.
I'm all for being safe, especially when it comes to our kids. I'd rather do "too much" and be embarassed by over reacting, than do "too little" and regret not doing enough.
But there's a danger to this sort of wild over reaction, though. It dulls the senses for actual dangers, for one thing. It uses up valuable resources that might be needed elsewhere, for another. My Wife works in the medical field. Local emergency rooms are becoming over-run with every drama queen with a runny nose who is now convinced that they have the Swine Flu. Declarations of Statewide disasters do allow us access to federal funds to "combat the epidemic", but where does that money come from?
You and me, in the end.
There is one other interesting observation I've made so far throughout the unfolding of this panic-fest.
By ANYONES definition, this whole pandemic has been really weak in the US, so far, using any measure of actual health risk and danger. Mostly just mild flu symptoms, not requireing hospitalization in the vast majority of cases. Even with the low number of cases, and the almost non-existent mortality rate, it has shown just how vulnerable we are to an actual biological threat - either natural or manmade - should it ever visit our shores.
Imagine, for a moment, what people's reaction would be if a weaponized virus were let loose in a US city and people started dropping dead by the dozens? If this puny little swine bug is over-loading the CDC, as was reported on one TV show this week, what would happen then?
2 comments:
This is sort of like calling for an evacuation because of a hurricane. If you don't call for the evacuation and hundreds of people die because of it then you are in big trouble. If you call for an evacuation and everyone in the city spends 20 hours stuck in traffic trying to evacuate and then the storm entirely misses the city you then you are in big trouble.
If you are wrong either way the Monday morning quarterbacks will eat you alive for making an obvious mistake.
You, Sir, have hit the nail squarely on the head.
I guess my biggest beef with this whole thing, is that with the enormous volume of news coverage - you'd think the quality of information would be a little better. If folks want to take steps to protect their kids, I'm all for it. I just hear mis-information over and over again all day long on the news, and its obvious people are making decisions based on misconceptions.
Example: I must have heard 50 times today about the toddler who died in Houston having visited a mall with HUNDREDS OF OTHER PEOPLE just DAYS BEFORE HE DIED....
Nobody in his own family has developed even so much as a case of the sniffles, though, and they were in much closer contact that anyone at that mall.
Same goes with CDC's definitions of "possible" and "probable" cases of Swine Flu... those terms don't necessarily mean what people think they do.
But you'll almost never hear that on the news.
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