Reply #53: Yeah, sorry, I'm really not paying that much attention

[NeedleCast]

Got shit to do and everything. I know folk like you are watching this with an eagle eye for me and will post a thread every 15 to 30 minutes while rubbing your hands together waiting for your body count.

It's a scary story for many people in the same way that terrorist attacks are a scary story for many people...because many people are easily scared. As I've said in other threads, 56% of Americans said they were "somewhat" or "very" scared that they would die or be harmed in a terrorist attack shortly after 9/11 despite figures showing the likelihood of death by terrorist attack at 1 in 11.3 billion world-wide. People are scared because the news told them to be scared.

I'm not in denial, I'm just capable of doing simple math. The transmission rate of this strain of flu seems pretty low even if the death rate is considerably higher than normal flu (and that's still up for debate as far as I'm concerned). With the flu spreading at a staggering rate of about 20 cases per day, and maybe, possibly two deaths per four days, the entire country will be wiped out in 150 million years.

So, you go on following it carefully. The US CDC director expects to see deaths. Okay. What does that mean? I expect there will be a few deaths during the normal course of DC rush hour on a daily basis but that doesn't keep me out of my car.

You can talk to me about it if you want, but I'm still not going to buy into the hype and yes, there is a shitload of media HYPE about this. One national news station said last night that there "could be tens of millions of deaths" from Swine flu. Others are using typical fear tactics every time someone in a state catches a sniffle. There's a difference between monitoring something, and blowing it hugely out of proportion and that's exactly what the media has done and they do it every single year with whatever new buzz-word virus they can latch onto.