Lemming Flu

Unless you're living under a rock, you've heard of a contagious disease that has affected people in Mexico and elsewhere in the world. The WHO and CDC are calling it an "outbreak" and the media is using words like "pandemic" and "crisis" and "emergency" with increasing frequency.

What is this horrible malady that warrants an "emergency response" from the CDC? What disease has shut down dozens of schools across the United States, grounded flights across the globe, and been the top story on every news medium in America?

It's the flu, of course.

I must be missing something. What exactly is it about this bug that should concern me? Has anyone answered that question? Have they told us anything that can be interpreted as "be afraid, this disease will maim and kill your family"? Personally, I haven't heard anything to that effect.

Now I don't want to sound callous as I say this, but an illness that infects a couple thousand people and kills a few hundred in Mexico does not worry me much. It's a 2nd world country for crying out loud! People there don't have access to medical treatment the way we do here. The people who are catching this thing here aren't dying because they're being treated and besides, the symptoms of this bug are NOT BAD! It's the flu!

According to CDC, here are the symptoms:

"The symptoms of H1N1 flu in people are similar to the symptoms of regular human flu and include fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue."

Oooh, scary. It's the FLU!! I don't know about you, but I get the flu every other year. In fact, it just worked it's way through my entire family. Big woop. I'm certainly not going to build my life plans around it. Why should this shut down a school, honestly?

Bottom line, I refuse to be a lemming. Someone somewhere decided that this is newsworthy and the next thing you know it's an epidemic of catastrophic proportions. I just don't buy it. Not without some proof.

Of course, I could be dead wrong about this. This could turn out to be a tragedy and I'll have to eat my words. But shouldn't we wait until there's some indication that this is worth worrying about? At this point all we know is that it's the flu and that its symptoms and treatment are the same as for the common flu. It's also contagious, but again, what exactly is the big deal?

I for one am not going to live in fear for no good reason.