The outbreak of ’swine flu’ (a hitherto unknown combination of flu strains) has already killed 81 people in Mexico so no-one in their right mind would say it’s not serious.
But one of the difficulties with such things is that lots of people have flu symptoms at any one time and it takes a while to discover exactly what they’ve got.
Another one is that many people don’t believe what the authorities tell them, assuming they’re just being urged to calm down while the medics and politicians try desperately to work out what to do.
Already we’ve had reports of a number of outbreaks in the USA including New York and Kansas and one in Auckland, New Zealand, among students returning from a trip to Mexico.
A British Airways pilot was hustled off to hospital yesterday after reporting flu symptons on landing in the UK from Mexico. Northwick Park hospital in Harrow says he doesn’t have swine flu but do we really believe them?
It’s set to be a tough old week, especially for anyone who’s just returned from Mexico.
One Comment
It’s been a while since I read about Spanish flu, but if I remember correctly, pandemics come in two waves - the first is the invasion of the new species (humans), where it mutated into an easily transmitted virus, and the second wave is when the virus mutates into the efficient, deadly killer.
We may be in the first wave now…