Posts Tagged ‘Swine flu’

Reading the news on the internet about the swine flu pandemic in the making is a rather odd experience.

Some of it is frightening on a very personal level: I have a beloved relative and many friends in Mexico, just across the border from Arizona, in the Sonoran Desert.

Some of it is intensely stupid: an Orthodox rabbi in Israel announcing that they will NOT refer to it as “swine flu” because swine are not kosher creatures.  Seriously?  Disease has to be kosher now, at least in name?

Some of it is aggravating: Apparently, the GOP members of Congress will have to stop stone-walling and approve Gov. Sibelius as Health Secretary now instead of continueing to filibuster to kiss the asses of religious right wingnuts.  Grow the frak up, you twits.  You lost the election because you are behaving like cultish dumbshits.  Representative democracy, not theocracy, remember?

Some is baffling, sort of: The WHO says travel restrictions won’t work.  Well, yes and no. Simply banning planes and ships from Mexico won’t work.  Obviously, people go from Mexico to the United States and elsewhere, and then infected folks there could take plane to Cuba or anywhere else banning Mexico-launched travelers.  But, serious enough travel restrictions COULD protect places like Australia: don’t let ANY plane or ship land.  Unfortunately, that is not feasible, is it?  If this is going to be a pandemic like 1918, then that kind of restriction might be a last resort—but almost certainly already too late.  But, so far, it is not killing on that level.  Cross your fingers, wash your hands, consider masks.

Some of the coverage is very sad: stories of doctors said to have to turned away patients in fear.  Panic is what could make this moderately serious outbreak into a real killer.  The flu originated in swine, took flight a bit with avian virus, and has landed in humans with bits of that viral history, too.  None of that means we need act like maddened swine going over the cliff like lemmings.  Be human…and more important, be HUMANE.

Some is maddening: There are suggestions that this illness may have originated at pig farms run for Smithfield Hams.  So, corporate farming may have created this mess, the better to make profits?  I have purchased exactly TWO products of Smithfield in my entire life; those are likely the last if this turns out to be the fault of sloppy stewardship.

Personal worries:  Air travel is likely helping this spread.  Air quality on jets is notoriously poor….one sneeze is recycled over and through the entire jet.  My husband has to fly next week.  He is SO wearing a mask saturated with tea-tree oil.  He just doesn’t know it yet.

I don’t believe this illness needs to have a death count like the 1918 pandemic.  Most people being diagnosed now are being treated so as to not develop killing pneumonia.  I will go out less than usual, I will be more careful if I feel ill to seek help instead of avoiding doctors as if they are the plague.  I will wash my hands more often, I will possibly invest in masks to wear in crowded places.

I believe good information and courage are the weapons of choice and may avail us even better than Tamiflu.  The media will flog this to the maximum level of bloody sodden panic.  We must now all be better than that!