Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Isn't there good news about swine flu?

I haven't seen anything to this effect in the press, but it seems to me we're very lucky in the timing of this outbreak. Flu has trouble spreading in the summer; flu viruses don't usually survive as long in high-humidity conditions. So this variant will probably spread slowly until next autumn. Which is about how long it will take to develop a vaccine. So we'll get targeted protection just when we need it.

Why hasn't someone in the media mentioned this? Maybe they're smarter than I am. Or maybe it cuts down on media hype and frenzy and sells fewer papers.

2 comments:

John said...

The other good news is the low death rate. I don't buy the Mexican numbers for a minute. The Mexicans have not confirmed that their deaths are actually the result of H1N1, as opposed to ordinary flu deaths which occur a lot more often than you would think, and have due to their relative poverty compared to the US probably missed 1000s of cases. The US has one confirmed death. As of yet, there are no other confirmed deaths outside of Mexico. It looks like the mortality rate is going to be low.

Anonymous said...

"Or maybe it cuts down on media hype and frenzy and sells fewer papers."

In times like this, when the newspapers are obviously sensationalizing a story, it makes me wonder if it's just a slow news week or if there's something the news organizations are intentionally trying to downplay.