Swine Flu Is Here And We’re All Going To Die!

If you watch the news, read a newspaper (remember those things) or log onto the internet, you’ll be blasted with swine flu updates, swine flu breaking news and swine flu death tolls.

The tenor of these stories is quite simple: swine flu is going to kill us all!

Happily, the swine flu isn’t going to kill us all.  It will hardly kill any of us.   Statistically, it will kill none of us.

For despite what the news media says and reports, the swine flu just isn’t that big of a deal.

In no way is this an indictment of the WHO, the CDC or any national or local health organization bent on controlling the virus.  Their reaction and handling of the swine flu is completely justified even if a bit extreme.  Nor is this article meant to belittle those suffering or those who have perished from this virus.

This article is however an indictment of the media and their irresponsible reporting.  The news media is incapable of degrees; it’s either all (we’re all going to die) or nothing (they just don’t report it).

What the news media should be telling us is that every year hundreds of thousands of people contract the flu and every year tens of thousands of people die from it.

At time of posting this article, there were only 4,600 suspected cases of swine flu in the world with a 102 suspected deaths, 17 confirmed (those are the most liberal figures available).

In Mexico and the United States there’s been about 3000 suspected cases of swine flu.  Sounds like a lot, but look at it this way: 420 million people live in those two countries and a whopping 0.00071% are infected with the swine flu virus.  There’s more people infected with the urge to listen to Keane.

The WHO stated on April 29 that the MAJORITY of people infected with swine flu make a full recovery without medical attention or antiviral drugs.

They also stated that those surgical masks everyone is wearing in Mexico, won’t do much.  And of course the swine flu cannot be contracted by eating pork.  Still no word if the infectious disease can be contracted by just porking.

Symptoms of swine flu, or influenza A virus subtype H1N1, include chills, fever, sore throat, muscle pains, severe headache, coughing, and general discomfort.

Also, how scary can a disease be when preventative measures include covering your mouth when you cough, washing your hands and not kissing a Mexican immediately after vomiting.

For the news media, the swine flu is nothing more than 2009′s version of shark attacks or missing white girls.  Of course what the news media is really rooting for is a missing white girl to contract swine flu after being bitten by a shark.

Local news outlets hover around health department offices desperately praying that someone in their market will contract the disease.  They don’t want to be left out of all the fun.

If a market is lucky enough to have a swine flu sufferer, they keep a running total and announce a new victim like they’re updating the collections board during a telethon.

Then there’s always that classic news story where they ask the hard hitting question, “is the swine flu changing your habits?”

Yes, the swine flu is changing my habits.  I now walk around pretending to cough and sneeze while asking people if they want to see pictures of my recent trip to Guadalajara.

The news media ignored officials’ request to stop using the word “swine” when describing the flu (for fear of adversely affecting the pork industry).  The reasons: the alternate “h1n1″ isn’t scary at all and it will cost a small fortune to change all their macabre “swine flu” graphics (that’s not a joke).

The news media loves its graphics.

My favorite was a news story about ways to deal with the hype concerning the swine flu.  You mean the hype created by the news media?  So basically the news aired a story about how to deal with the news running stories.  Swine flu hype is solely the fault of the news media.

Much to their disappointment, and contrary to their hype, the swine flu isn’t going to be the ruination of humanity.  In fact, you have a better chance of getting stuck by lightening than you do from being stricken with the swine flu.