Swine Flu

Mood: D:<

Seeing that I'm in bed sick today with the flu, I thought I'd do a little raging on the devastating effects of last year's "Swine Flu" epidemic. Now we all know that swine flu was just another name for a strain of flu. However, some people decided to take it way out of proportion and act as though the apocalypse was coming, and proceeded to lock themselves and their children up in the house. Because a closed door is going to save you from microscopic creatures. Anyway, I'd like to start us off with a comparison of symptoms of swine flu and regular flu.

Regular Flu Symptoms (Sauce):

• Fever (usually high)
• Headache
• Extreme tiredness
• Dry cough
• Sore throat
• Runny or stuffy nose
• Muscle aches
• Stomach symptoms, such as nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, also can occur but are more common in children than adults

Swine Flu Symptoms (Sauce):

• Fever above 100.4 °F
• Cough
• Sore throat
• Headache
• Chills
• Muscle aches
• Diarrhea
• Vomiting

Okay...so what's the largest difference between the two?

If you said "one is named after pigs" you'd be right.

So if this is the case, why did so many people freak out about it? I'll tell you why. People in this day and age are fucking stupid. They hear that there's this new "Swine Flu", and that it's transferred over from (oh shit!) Mexico, and people are dropping like flies over there, and (Oh my god!) someone in Texas got it and they died!

Okay, okay wait. Let's take a look at the facts.

1. Did anybody even research Swine Flu before they started freaking out about it? Because it looks to me that symptoms are mostly the same.
2. Of course people are dropping like flies in Mexico, our health care is very different, and I'm going to wager a guess that our sanitary and health conditions are a bit better than theirs are.
3. The person who died in Texas was very young, infantile or a toddler. When you're that young, you don't really have much of an immune system yet.
4. Almost all other deaths caused by swine flu were on people who's immune systems probably could not handle it (ie. Women who had just given birth, the elderly, or babies)

Now it was this very fear that kept me from going to Japan. No, it wasn't that my mom was worried about it, my mom is a pharmacist, and held the same views as me about the flu (only, she had it worse because she actually had to deal with hysterical morons all day). No, it was the government of Japan, which was scared of swine flu in the country. Now, this is one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world, and they're scared of a microscopic organism that's no different from any other flu strains, except by name?

So what we have here is a case of collective scare. Just because one person is worried about it, we'll be worried about it too. The news of this new pandemic swept over us so quickly no one had time to grasp the facts. Now if you're smart (like me) you do a little back reading first before you shit your pants about something.

I've no choice but to agree with the genius creator of this venn diagram: