Flu Comments

Anonymous Said:

A great forum for information and updated news is http://www.swineflu.org/.

My Comment:

My just turned 8 year old son went to first grade at St Mels Catholic School in Fair Oaks CA last year. This school just made national news this week as one of the first schools in the US closed with confirmed H1N1 infections. This year we went him to another Catholic school about 1.5 miles away, but both schools comingle students for activites, so this has sort of hit close to home. We pulled him from school last week and will do so again next week.

My wife has been scrutinizing the web for the latest available news. After about 10 hours of this on Saturday, I finally had to say enough is enought as I sensed it was getting to her; so we went to a semi public place for a quiet dinner tonite.

The web site you mentioned appears good and we will spend more time on it tomorrow. Here's what I think:

1) Our government, and for that matter, all world governments are not being honest with us. For example, the US government recommends a school closure if a one student has become infected with H1N1 flu. There are over 400 school closures in the US this week, but the official number of US swine flu infections is a little over 100. The number of school closures says the official number of infections should be over 400. The available data suggests there might be tens of thousands of infected people in the US right now. We really don't know and I don't think our government knows.

2) An economic panic could create havoc for the world economy, which is on the brink of suffering a from a world depression. Any more bad news and a worldwide depression will most certainly enuse.

3) World governments are downplaying the scope of this bug as it could create economic chaos. It's a tradeoff. If governments were honest about the scope, economic chaos could ensue and cause thousands of starvation deaths worldwide due to decreased food production. World governments are likely gambling H1N1 will burn its self out shortly with the onset of summer; and that a vaccine will likely be available this fall. In short, creating a panic now could create economic chaos and cause deaths. A few thousand deaths from H1N1 in the interim is worth a larger number of potential deaths deaths from economic panic.

4) Contrary to what is officially said, governments around the world are reacting as if this bug is a major threat. Governments have the inside scope and I am of the opinion that if they think its this serious of a threat, then there's a lot more to it than they let on.

The point is, I don't trust governments. They have their own agenda(s) and it is incumbent upon us to read between the lines. I hope this bug is a false alarm, but until we find out otherwise, commonsense dictates vigilance and some precautions. We should know in the next couple of weeks the true scope of this bug. In the mean time, our family will avoid public places and spend our outdoor time in the country away from people.