Bookworm puts the number of deaths the administration is projecting from the H1N1 virus into perspective:
Given Obama’s manifest motives, the numbers may or may not be true. We know he predicts budget numbers down when it suits him, and it’s unclear whether he’ll predict viral numbers up (to scare people) or down (to hide problems on his watch). Once a guy has established himself as dishonest, you always know he’s lying, even if you don’t know precisely what direction that lie is taking.
But even the number is dead on accurate, here’s something to think about: In a normal year, more than 30,000 Americans die of the flu, out of a population of more than 300,000,000 people. If Obama’s H1N1 numbers are correct, the projected deaths will have a (sadly) negative effect on a mere .0003 of the total American population. Just to put that in context, the Spanish Influenza in 1918 killed about 675,000 Americans, and this happened when the population was only around 100,000,000. Even that nightmarish period killed only .006 of the population. To give even more context, the Black Death in 1348 killed between a half to a third of Europe’s population, depending on which country you’re examining.
