Getting swine flu into perspective

I am sure I am not alone in watching the ‘Swine Flu‘ reporting with a degree of scepticism.

The Millennium Bug was going to wipe us out. When it didn’t, we were subsequently faced with SARS and Avian Flu. They didn’t amount to much either (except, of course, for those who died or were bereaved). Now we have Swine Flu and the media are dominated by this latest threat to the world’s population. But what is really going on?

Last night’s BBC News had a long item which included statements to the effect that this is the most serious threat since the last War and that hundreds of thousands could die if infected. Having scared us into thinking the end is almost certainly nigh, the reported then went into detail explaining that very few people had died so far, that millions die every year from ‘ordinary’ flu and that there is no reason to panic.

Er… did I miss something or was that a waste of a report? ‘This could be deadly. But it isn’t. Don’t panic – you can’t do anything anyway, but wash your hands alot. And, if you do get it, all you need to do is take some anti-viral drugs.’

Thousands die on our roads every year, but we don’t have massive news campaigns to ban driving. Most people who die of flu are already vulnerable and die of complications exacerbated by the debilitating effects of flu. OK, Swine Flu is supposed to hit younger people rather than older people, but we have yet to know what is really going on with those who have already died. Having been told with great certainty that 160 people in Mexico had died of Swine Flu, we are later told that, in fact, only 7 people had died directly from the infection; the rest had died and had also been infected, but it wasn’t certain that there was a direct link. Correlations don’t make explanations…

This is worrying. If this almost-pandemic comes to little or nothing (after SARS and Avian Flu), who will take any notice the next time anything serious threatens us? I heard that this might turn out to be minor, but that already-weakened people might then get hit by a Winter Flu bug and then die. Weren’t we told similar things about SARS?

I am concerned that the fear factor is unnecessarily being ratcheted up by the media and that governments are following the media lead. Isn’t it time we had some intelligent information, rational (statistical) discussion and took calming measures in the face of something we can’t do alot about anyway?

I hope I am right in being suspicious of the way this is being hyped up. The only benefit I can see is if organisations (such as the Church) use the opportunity to do some planning and dry-running for an unspecific social disaster and test out their procedures before the need is really there.

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