Bucharest Life’s little girl was sent home from kindergarden this morning because one of the other kids is suspected of having Swine Flu. The whole place now has to be disinfected, and will be closed until next Monday at least.
Better safe than sorry? Probably. But it does beg the question why we should be treating Swine Flu any differently to ordinary flu (for which we do not close kindergardens or schools)?
Each year, more than 36,000 people in the United States die from ordinary, bog standard flu. The total number of deaths from Swine Flu worldwide has yet to reach 1,500.
So instead of a real threat, what have is scare mongering.
This latest round of fear has been induced by a sharp increase (yet still tiny) in cases of Swine Flu in neighbouring Ukraine. At the weekend, a tiny, local outbreak in the mountain resort of Sinaia also caused panic amongst excitable television news reporters with hours to kill. (It is to be expected that the dangers of Swine Flu will not be so present today: Romania’s parliament votes on whether or not to invest a new government).
Swine Flu, like most pandemics of fear, is a paper tiger. People may well die from Swine Flu in Romania, though a massive immunisation campaign to begin on November 26 should protect most people at risk.
What we will not see are the ‘up to 20,000 deaths’ in Romania from Swine Flu, as Antena 3 would have had us believe on Sunday evening. Nor does the fact that vaccines will not be available until November 26 prove the president or non-existent government is incompetent (we knew that anyway).
Indeed, trying to score political points on an issue like this is somewhat despicable, yet does betray why modern politicians need such pandemics of fear.
In the United Kingdom, the leader of the Green Party, Caroline Lucas, has used Swine Flu as a platform to put forward her crackpot ideas on agriculture. In April of this year she said: ‘As evidence mounts of the links between the increasing intensification of pig and poultry production, and the spread of these animal-based epidemics that can be lethal to humans, it is even more urgent that ministers set up the thoroughgoing commission of inquiry which the Green Party first called for after the avian flu outbreaks a few years ago.’
In other words, Swine Flu is deployed as a weapon in her campaign to prove that agriculture is not a means to feed the world, but the cause of global catastrophe.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
The problem with swine flu is that young people with an apparently very good health condition died from the disease. Otherwise no problem…
Oh noes.
To be fair, the thing about what’s going on with the swine flu is that it’s already done this much damage from April to October. What’s the damage going to look like when flu season comes around?
Reportedly, they’ll be vaccinating older students, especially in universities.
Glad to see Romania isn’t going quite as batshit as Ukraine! However, if the griping of my best friend the Bucharester that echoes all the way over here from the concrete buildings in Drumul Taberei is any indication, shit might hit the proverbial fan .
One good reasons i hardly ever turn on the TV…they only manage to create panic. that’s it!
Financial news in Romania? Give me a break. The Money Channel is perhaps the most pointless TV channel on the planet. Audience? Not even sure it has one. If they have a panel of more than four people discussing something I think that means more people are on the channel than watching it…
We live in a world of spin – max impact from hype and twisting of the truth. I even see it on the financial news which I have now switched off !