Swine flu mania is sweeping the nation, nay, the world.
With the total number of confirmed cases in the U.S. at (gasp!) 40, and the number in Mexico at roughly 1600, fanatical responses have been pasted over the news wires, much to the delight of anemic circulation departments of the print media.
And those crazy Democrats, never ones to let a good crisis go to waste, are now complaining about the Republican opposition to funding for pandemic preparation in the Stimulus bill. You know, the bill that’s supposed to create jobs?
Even the U.S. Military is monitoring the swine flu, saying it has no immediate plans to release anti-viral medication to its members.
And Obama is right on top of the situation.
“This is obviously cause for concern and requires a heightened state of alert. But it is not cause for alarm.”
He’ll tell us when to panic.
It’s only a matter of time that this concern will be weaved into a reason to push for nationalized health care.
It has become an international crisis overnight. Don’t travel here, no bacon allowed, we’re all going to have to live in quarantined bubbles soon.
What the hell is the matter with people?
The 24 hour news cycle and instantaneous news at our fingertips causes both writer and reader to feel as if something, anything, needs to be happening. So when something comes along that is newsworthy in a regional nature, it is irresponsibly blown into a “pandemic” proportion, sucking in a vulnerable audience, like a universal Pavlovian dog, who at the ring of a bell, salivates whether there’s something for him or not.
Mad Cow, bird flu, SARS.. When will we learn?
When will we learn that whenever something like this bubbles up, we’re played like frothing dupes by the politicians and media, who’s true concern is not for our safety and survival, but for theirs?
Update:
Obama spoke to the National Academy of Sciences and politicized this little tid-bit:
He cited the emergent swine flu outbreak as an example of why the nation cannot afford to fall behind in science. “Our capacity to deal with a public health challenge of this sort rests heavily on the work of our scientific and medical community,” he said.
Sheesh.
