Well, a "killer pandemic virus" has come home to kill all of us under Obama's watch, and more than a couple of the lunatic fringe of the Right and Left (yeup, the Left: claim it's a left over of Bush's regime!) and it's killed ONE! Yeup, one freaking human being and even before this scurrying politicians were declaring state's of emergency (heading off any press claims they didn't overreact fast enough) and basicly acting as if a flu virus might actually harm their careers.
Well, to be fair it might kill a few, but to keep this all in perspective one must remember that the NORMAL flu will kill around 40,000 to 60,000 people a year!!! Thats right folks: more Americans than guns and the war in Iraq combined. Why don't you hear about this little body count? Heck, this is more than die from second hand smoke (or maybe not, no one can agree of that body count, for some reason) but everyone just considers it akin to dying in a car accident, a even more common event, and a lot less spectacular. Car accidents are indeed more spectacular, and old folks and kids dying in hospitals are icky) and kill more people (by about 10 to 30 thousand a year, depending on the flue season). So why is everyone so panicked about the swine flu? Because no one saw it coming, pure and simple. The CDC and others were all still waiting for the Bird Flu to mutate into the killer virus from hell and to reach our little patch of dirt and them"WHAM!" like a mysterious, masked, "man with no name" Mexican wrestler comes this little gift from the south of the border. To the say the least, it does kill, and it does seem to be spreading fast. So, should it mutate as viruses do (and they do it fast) them it indeed COULD be a serious problem.
So, do we panic NOW? No. And closing the border is going to do damned little good at this point. Or lynching your local illegals either. Folks, IT'S HERE!!! That's right, at this point it's closing the barn door after the raging bull is out, in the pasture, and tearing up the fence. Not that viruses have ever been particularly law-abiding concerning borders anyway. If two dictatorships like Vietnam and China couldn't keep the bird flu in China, and with a MUCH shorter border, we're screwed in any case! Closing the border is both pointless and too late in any case. Unless you start shooting people, and every wild pig as well, crossing the border. Not even a Right Wing Whacko like me is going for that little bit of brutality.
So what to do? Sit back and the enjoy the bare-back experience? Yes and no. The virus is here and already a fully recognized citizen. If we close the border, quarantine ALL travel, and kill every pig in the US, we might contain it. If it does turn into another Spanish Flu or Black Death (in which the piggy-back flu from Hell did 90% of the killing) then this will be needed. At that point the nativists, those that survive the plague, get their armed border and shoot on sight borders. No point in making it any worse by letting in MORE potential carriers.
On a whole however, I don't think this is going to get that bad by any means. No, I'm being pollyanna either. It might kill a few thousand, even more, and thus be a tragedy, but in comparison to a normal flu outbreak, not all that bad.
We are not the US of 1919.
True the press is going to salivate like rabid weasels over every hospital admission and the politicians from both parties will grandstand, rip into each other, and exploit this for all it's worth. And if the President Obama doesn't exploit this to push for universal health care, then he's a freaking IDIOT! I don't believe in such health care, but if I did, the Swine Flu problem going south would be a opportunity from God, so to speak.
I can guarantee two things: It will declared a pandemic by the end of May or when the death toll reaches a thousand (does mean the measles are a pandemic? I kills several thousand a year!), which ever comes first. Second, that this damned virus will dominate the news no matter the death toll for the same period. Oh yeah, the National Health Care initiative will be pushed through (successful or not) by the end of Summer thanks to this.
So wash your hands, stay away from people with the cough and sniffles, and get your flu shots, keep your wits about you and, likely as not, you'll live a long life. Unless you die in a car accident.
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