- submitted by avernon on 04/30/2009
Swine Flu. Argggh! Or Not?
By Amy Vernon
Swine flu.
Just my typing those words onto the computer screen were supposed to send you into the deepest throes of panic.
If you're not utterly panicked by the words -- SWINE FLU (maybe capitalization will help?) -- what in the world is wrong with you?
Heck, the World Health Organization's Director-General, Dr. Margaret Chan, just yesterday explained that "all of humanity is under threat during a pandemic."
Twitter's all a-Twitter about it, and if that doesn't panic you, then, well, you're probably not on Twitter. Why not? Don't you want to hear the latest tweet about swine flu? Some of it is even swine flu humor (guppy flu? really?). Heck, I just learned there are five confirmed cases of swine flu in New Jersey, where I live, so I suppose I should shut and lock all the windows and stock up on canned food and bottled water and keep my son home from school.
I mean, right?
However, my husband is something of a hypochondriac, so you throw in the threat of a global pandemic and he's ready to hole up until the media gets off the hype wagon.
Then I read this afternoon that this strain of flu might not even be as deadly as regular, plain old influenza that isn't blamed on any animal. And I had to take my son to the doctor for a checkup unrelated to swine flu this afternoon and the doctor said nobody even knows yet how relatively deadly this strain is, because there haven't even been enough cases of it to determine that.
And the CDC says that more than 200,000 Americans are hospitalized and 36,000 die each year due to the regular flu.
Each flu season is unique, but it is estimated that, on average, approximately 5% to 20% of U.S. residents get the flu, and more than 200,000 persons are hospitalized for flu-related complications each year. About 36,000 Americans die on average per year from the complications of flu.
Sorry, that's not scary enough for you?
How about:
SWINE FLU!
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Amy Vernon is a contributing writer at Burbia and a regular blogger.
Amy grew up on Long Island and has lived in the Chicago, Miami, Phoenix and New York metropolitan areas at various points in her life. In other words, she's spent her entire life in the suburbs, except that summer she interned for The Courier-Journal in Kentucky, though the Louisville neighborhood she lived in seemed pretty dang suburban.
She has a bachelor of science in journalism (that's a B.S. in journalism, get it?) from Northwestern University and worked for newspapers as a reporter, editor and blogger for nearly 20 years before she was laid off in the great newspaper culling of 2008.
Amy now works from home as a freelance consultant and writer with her husband, a writer/actor/stay-at-home father who has taken on the additional role of office manager as she settles into her new life. Her older son, Rafael, loves zebras, giraffes and elephants, while the younger, Markus, is utterly obsessed with the "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" book and DVD.
Got all that? You can find Amy online waxing poetic about television -- particularly 24, Battlestar Galactica and Lost, not necessarily in that order -- at The TV Tyrant or follow her on Twitter @amyvernon. ...read more rants
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