On Swine.

I was going to try to get through this swine flu thing without having to mention it, but it just won’t go away.  So here goes nothing…

WHAT’S GOING ON?

What seemed like just another illness hitting the poverty-stricken has turned into a full-blown panic worldwide, with people wearing masks in public from New York to Madrid.  The World Health Organization still says a pandemic of the new “H1N1 flu” is “imminent.”

WHY DO WE CARE?

At first, the swine flu seemed isolated in Mexico.  But now it’s spread all over the U.S., all over Europe and even into Hong Kong and Korea, along with a handful of other countries.  It’s still worst in Mexico, however, with death counts of up to 150, depending on who you listen to.  Mexico City has been shut down for days, a 9-million-person ghost town.

Cases outside of Mexico, thankfully, have been mild in comparison, and only one death has been attributed to the new flu outside that country’s borders.  But with nearly 300 confirmed cases in the U.S. alone, we shouldn’t completely ignore it.

I’m impressed with the school systems in Texas that have closed down, because I know many parents who would send their children to school with pneumonia, let alone a flu.  Even in Texas, sometimes governments have to step in to save people from themselves.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

Not much, except get vaccinated and wait it out.  The U.S. Center for Disease control is working on a specific vaccine for this flu, but common flu therapies have been found to be effective.

And don’t worry about eating pig products.  That has nothing at all to do with the swine flu, even though Egypt would beg to differ: authorities there are slaughtering the nation’s entire stock of the animals.

Mainly, I think we just need to stay calm, wash our hands, and stay home if we feel under the weather.  I have a feeling that this, too, shall pass.