It is sad how many people want to make the Swine Flu into the coming Pandemic. There is so much hand wringing and hysterical headlines out there that it frustrates me to no end. Fortunately, I see this more as shameless opportunism rather than people actually wanting to see “millions” die. This latest story from the Guardian reinforces my theory. The UN is now issuing a report saying millions could die if the rich nations do not contribute 900 million Pounds (approx $1.5 Billion) to pay for medicine. This is for a virus that based on the information at the end of the article is lethal in 0.5% of the cases that were confirmed (41 deaths in 8,187 cases). This is in Africa where the health care system is worse than the rest of the developed world. So, if millions will die, then billions will need to get infected. To reach that level of infection, nearly one in six of all people IN THE WORLD would have to get infected.
So far, I have not seen anything in the reality of the swine flu numbers to make me think this is anywhere near likely.
- FOP Vermillion