Monday, April 27, 2009

Crisis in a pig's eye

As of today, not one American has even been hospitalized.

Multiples of tens of thousands of flu cases in the USA are positively diagnosed every year. How many more just stay home, take aspirin and whatever, and wait until the symptoms subside then go back to work, and never even make the count?

This whole thing is stupid, and should have been framed as a precaution with a single press conference and we'll get back with you if this all goes south.

No offense but this is not a third world nation and the perils of our exposure is not the same as the slums of Sao Paolo, or Abidjian, or Tripoli.

I don't want to say they don't want to waste a created crisis, but this is a giant stupidity RIGHT NOW, anyway for us.

5 comments:

midnight rider said...

I'll say it, Epa. They don't want to waste a created crisis. Bith the Administration AND THE FUCKING MEDIA. Much more exciting to report POSSIBLE PANDEMIC NEW YORKERS WEARING FACEMSAKS ON THE SUBWAYS CHILDREN STAY HOME OUT OF AN ABUNDANCE OF CAUTION EUROPEAN UNION RECOMMENDS NO TRAVEL TO THE U.S. OR MEXICO than .000013% of the U.S. Population feeling a bit icky. Doesn't sell quite so well.

Anonymous said...

I spoke with friends who are professional nurses - and not one of these nurses (one works for the county) received any notice or update pertaining to this virus at the hospitals at which they work.

Ellen K said...

As someone who lives and teaches school in a border state, I take this more seriously that you guys in more removed places. Follow my thinking-

First of all, why didn't the CDC issue the warnings around 50 deaths ago? We have thousands of people crossing into Texas DAILY. Or would that have embarrassed the President who was in Mexico City at that time? If they chose keeping a political moment alive over the safety of Americans, then there is some explaining to do.

Secondly, the administration may be deliberately choosing to undercut the severity of the situation because this simply further highlights why the borders must be better controlled. Team Obama doesn't like that and if he takes any measures to make Mexico accountable, the usual Hispanic PAC's will come out to remonstrate him.

Third, here in the DFW area-heck in all of the border states for that matter-there are many service companies such as Aramark that hire workers with very little due diligence. These workers are sometimes Hispanic. And sometimes they go home for holidays. Given the origination point of this outbreak, don't you think it would be prudent to take a survey and see who visited home in Mexico in say, the last six weeks? And if you don't think that's important, consider this-companies like Aramark and others work in food services and custodial work in hospitals, businesses and public schools.

Finally, while this may not be the pandemic per se, it could be a type of dry run trial for something bigger. It's long been speculated that if terrorists wanted to enter, they would do so across the Mexican border. The "OTM" status of many of the lost captures by INS and that is pretty scary when you consider that we find abandoned trailers on west Texas rangeland all the time. The nature of the virus that has hit is somewhat suspicious. You would have to look long and hard to find a virus that has bird, human and swine flu attributes. What worries me is that this is a dry run for some other event. And if that's the case, it's been proven that our borders are porous, that distribution is viable and that we are a target.

You can downplay this if you want, but if Team Obama doesn't learn from incidents such as this, then we will be attacked again. What better time than now to make sure we are doing all we can. Except of course, that the politicians won't let us....

Epaminondas said...

Hi Ellen, while what u say merits serious consideration, this is not a learning experience. I was around for the swine flu joke of the 70's..THAT was a learning experience.

More, there is no way to defend against a virus which has not been in the human population to create antibodies against.

Short of everyone stay home and shoot visitors, which might have unpleasant short term economic circumstances.

If there is anyone on earth who thinks biological warfare works today.. they are literally suicidal.

Even if, let's say, the mullahs had vaccinated themselves, and released something, they would still end up incinerated. As for a national pre incident vaccination, no one could keep it secret.

Biological warfare if it was effective against the target would kill the world.
PERIOD.

Nation number 3 chronologically this time around was NEW ZEALAND. Intuitively one might imagine an island nation 9000 miles away in the pacific might be one of the few places which COULD isolate itself.

No, any nation smart enough to develop an effective biological VIRAL agent would also be smart enough to understand release is suicide.

Not withstanding... a secure border is compulsory for the safety and the security of the people.... as we can see, for MANY reasons.

Anonymous said...

The really, really weird thing is that NO ONE (that I have seen anyway) is telling the American people what is the absolute best way to avoid ANY flu. Wash your damn hands. Like six times a day.

Use plenty of soap, lots of warm water and dry with a clean towel.

Repeat in two to three hours, no matter if you think your hands aren't dirty.

When the bird flu speculation was at one of its periodic peaks, one of the CDC people said that if you are not living in what looks like an "active" area for any flu, that diligent, frequent hand washing by people had the capability to limit the flu to the "hot spots" and avert an epidemic.

But I guess that is just too prosaic for the "panic now" mentality being fueled by much of the major media. Because if people are panicked, they are much easier to manipulate. (TARP and "Stimulus" anyone?)

So wash your hands. And quit rubbing your eyes.

Ro