Health: Swine Flu Update

ICHC

While y'all are panicking over Joe Biden's latest comment (he apparently announced that he'd told his nearest and dearest to stay off trains, subways, and other such crowded places because of the swine flu), here's the latest news on the swine flu. For those disinclined to click the linky, the WHO (World Health Organization, in case you've been a hermit for the past X decades) is stating unequivocally that only SEVEN people have died worldwide since the supposed "pandemic" began.

Brian thinks large, friendly letters saying "DON'T PANIC" should never be reproduced in red, a colour that is alleged to induce panic just by virtue of it's position on the colour spectrum or the eyeball-friendly wavelengths or whatEVER. Point taken, Bri, you'll notice that we've reoutfitted our friendly warning. So. In short. DON'T PANIC. You'll feel better that way.

The reasons the WHO and other governmental agencies, like the CDC, have declared this outbreak of swine flu a pandemic is that (1) it is safer to be prepared for an emergency than to be caught flatfooted; (2) human lives are at stake. An epidemic of butt-vanishment would probably have elicited a worldwide yawn. (3) the epidemic comprises viruses from several different forms of life — avian and mammalian — that have combined to form a new virus; (4) influenza virii mutate quickly and unpredictably; (5) unlike previous animal-source influenzas, this virus can be transmitted between humans.

That said, knowing that a mere seven people have died, not 152 as reported by some hysteria-inducing media morons, is major cause to NOT PANIC. Sheesh, that death rate is way lower than that from traffic accidents, drinking, drugging, and prescription medication mixups. So, yeah, it's sorta worrisome that the disease can be transmitted between humans, but it is almost to laugh that it is transmitted rather ineffectually and doesn't seem to kill very many humans (of whom many should die just because, like Neal Horsey, Michele Bachmann, and Flush Rimbowl, they're a complete waste of oxygen and protoplasm).

So, DON'T PANIC.

In other news, Satan's porcine handmaiden (all praise to Maru, goddess of name-calling and aproposity), KKKarl Rove apparently once mocked President Obama's willingness to spend money battling swine flu. No doubt KKKarl has little to worry about, since his fellow swine will extend him the professional courtesy of "passing-over" him, as it were, you know,making sure they don't infect him. The rest of us, not having that guarantee of rosy health, will just take precautions and pray/work for the day when that oinking swine is in leg chains at the Hague.

Those of you who have given up in exasperation that the li'l porker will never meet the justice he so richly deserves, take heart. Judge Baltasar Garzon of Spain has opened an investigation into the systemic torture at Gitmo, and one can always hope that Dick "Dick" Cheney and Karl Rove get swept up as a result. They'd look so cute in matching orange jumpsuits.

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