Swine Flu - News Event

The news media has been having a field day. They have a new crisis. They can now spend 24 hours reporting on the "spread" of swine flu. Out of a population of 303,824,64o there are less than 100 cases of this flu. Those cases are limited to less than 10 states, with the largest, 28, in New York City. These 28 cases are in a school of 3000 students. Most of the newer cases have been found as a result of increased testing and not further spread.

I don't want to minimize the people who have this flu, but we have to consider the size of our population before we panic. Most of the students are already recovering and the school has taken steps to thoroughly clean the building. Most of the affected students spent spring break in Mexico.

The residents of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas have a right to be concerned. Those states are being infiltrated by illegal aliens from Mexico. These are in all likelihood poor people who have not had adequate diets to improve their immune systems. This is probably the reason why the only deaths from the disease so far have occurred in Mexico. This is yet another reason to increase our border security.

Other countries are starting to panic. Russia plans on stopping importation of US pork and beef, although there is no evidence that this flu can be caught from eating those foods. I can understand someone's not wanting to travel to Mexico, besides the flu they have other serious problems.

I don't see this epidemic becoming like the pandemic of 1918. At that time, most countries were isolated from other countries, nutrition was poor and everyone's immune system was weak.

This may just be another of those crises that President Obama's people don't want to waste. See how quickly he reacted? I'm just waiting to hear him say that he inherited this problem out of force of habit.

I'm not minimizing the problem, but let's keep it in perspective and be alert for symptoms. And, above all, eat properly, get enough rest and you should be OK. Don't panic.