In the spirit of this xkcd comic, I’d like to file a bug report on that section of the British public that Had its Say to the BBC on the swine flu epidemic.
You could basically construct almost any one of these farts-in-email format by perming any 3 items from the following list:
- It was deliberately created in a military lab to cull the world’s population
- It is a just media hype to sell papers
- It is just a pharmaceutical industry hype to sell tamiflu
- It is an imaginary disease dreamt up by the same media liberals who insist that climate change is a real danger.
- Treatment is a waste of their precious public money
- It’s just “flu” and, therefore, completely insignificant
- It is completely out of control. (It’s actually possible to find this idea in the same email as the idea above)
- I demand immediate access to the (so far purely conceptual) vaccination
- The (so far purely conceptual) vaccination is poisonous and I refuse to take it.
- The government has invented the epidemic to distract us from….
This example is a representative classic, in its mixture of selfishness, poor grasp of the English language and anti-labour government ranting.
I suppose we the Tax payer will be paying for the expensive drugs, the additional medical staff and rubbish propoganda material published by good old Gordo and his quango’s
Hmm, these HYS-armchair-generals-turned-medical-experts make me feel pig sick. Even if I didn’t have swine flu, which I apparently do.
From the above list I’d opine that the ‘It’s just “flu†and, therefore, completely insignificant’ claim is probably the only one with even the vaguest ring of truth about it.
Swine flu worries me because I hate having flu. Also yeah, the media hype about it has me worried. I’m easily swayed.
I would be *so* angry if I got killed by swine flu that the sheer rage of my death would create god. And this god would be a god of rage and vengence. Then the world would know true fear.
Fantastic comic. I managed to avoid the swine flu hype by being completely culturally unaware. I honestly don’t know many moms who didn’t put our kids on the bus for school that week. If a flu is serious or not, you still have to function day to day like the world isn’t about to end.
Maybe I managed to avoid the hype but, as I I got brought down by the real thing, I can’t see it as just hype so easily.
The fear that I could infect someone with asthma, kidney disease, a weak immune system, etc., and cause them serious illness or death has kept me well and truly isolated for a week.
Heather, surely that would be the case with any kind of ‘flu, not just this more recent porcine variety?
Of course you’re right.
Luckily, I’ve only had “real” standard forms of flu a couple of times in my life and those illnesses felt much worse.
But then I was either too young and/or too ignorant to realise the damage I could do to other people so I didn’t really think about it. I didn’t know how many people died from them.
Also they were one or two day illnesses that rendered me incapable of even standing up, let alone going into public places.
The ironic thing about H1N1 is that in 99.9999999% of cases it is no worse than any other flu (if not milder).
I wonder why we dont have such outrage when people die of seasonal flu? Is it simply that H1N1 is much more transmissible, possibly because sufferers aren’t totally flattened, so more people might catch it meaning an otherwise small fatality rate would still produce a lot of deaths?
TW – I am sure you are right there.