H1N1 Scare Justified?
 

So with all the PSA's and media reports and crowded line-ups, I wanna talk about H1N1, or Swine Flu. Mainly 'cause it's all I hear over the radio at work. So yeah.

With all the new safety measures being put into place, the vaccine out before it's officially sanctioned in Canada, all the warnings and boxes of sanitizer on the wall, is it really necessary? There have been a few deaths in British Columbia and I think about 30 total in Canada, but is this a new media scare?

From what I hear, H1N1 only lasts like 5 days and doesn't even make you as sick as the normal flu. Tons of people die every year from the normal flu. Granted, most of them are the very young and elderly, but still.

Someone in my area went so far as to say by the time they can confirm it's H1N1, you've already recovered.

All I know is I wanna be afraid for awhile without anyone laughing at me!

I doubt it should be that much of a cause for concern among the individual. I mean, if you get the "regular" flu when your immune system is compromised/you're elderly/whatever is it's still not unheard of for it to develop into pneumonia and kill a few people every year. Okay, that's probably not the best way to put it, but basically: it's slightly more potent than all the other flu's you've been exposed to in previous years, so unless you're not in good health you should just get your vaccine and not worry.

I hear it targets those with better immune systems though, aka the healthier types of people like young adults and the like. I've also heard that it affects different peoples immune systems differently.

So I don't know much of anything, probably.

Yes, it's another media scare.

It's getting to the point that when they announce AIDS has mutated into an air carried flesh eating doom virus no one is going to care because they've been all scared out. It's the media that cried wolf.

I do totally dig how the college policy is to just let people claim sick days now.
 

But I don't want to be a crumpled pile of clothes comically topped by some hair on the floor!

At this point I'm sure the media has actually killed more people than it's saved by stressing everyone out about the swine flu. Don't read newspapers or watch TV, it'll do you more good than getting inoculated.

Media beatup. Regular flu kills far more.

I was under the impression that they were more horrified because of the potential that H1N1 could mutate or combine with some other form of of virus, creating some sort of killer flu? I'm not sure, haven't followed this.

There should be a hybrid between bird flu and swine flu. It might be horribly lethal, but in return we'd be dying of the "flying pig disease".