I may end up gasping to my death and you can say, “I told you so.” But for what it’s worth, I think this swine flu deal is a case of a good crisis milked for all it's worth to get a HHS secy confirmed, a DHS secy rehabilitated. Mexican immigration questioned, community health centers funded, more billions in pharco money, and so on.
At very least, it is a roiling hotbed of weirdness and misinformation four days in. And speaking of that—how can an epidemic "start" on a slow news day like a Sunday anyhow and be almost full cry in 24 hrs?
Just lucky, I guess.
People are trying to get Tamiflu, which is not a vaccine. There is no vaccine. The one you got in last fall’s flu shot does not protect against this Bird-Pig Mutant…sounds scarier that way, doesn’t it?
Tamiflu can shorten the course of any flu and head off life-threatening pneumonia. So that may be an approach. We have 35 million doses, with many reserved for emergency personnel.
Before you get into a complete tizz and buy out the store on masks, remember, 36 million people die of plain-old-boring flu every year. This kind does strike people in their prime (why I know I am safe, heh).
So…wash your hands before eating. And certainly AFTER taking off that mask. You are believing that it’s potentially coated with mutant death, right?
And maybe from the inside, too—you can catch any flu from someone before they have symptoms.
They closed a school in Phoenix for a week because one case came back confirmed. The kid got better the week before.
What does this mean? The usual. Crapshoot.
