Who Was That Masked Man?
October 20th, 2009He Smelled Like Lysol and Prime Beef
I have the swine flu figured out. All you have to do is get a freezer and shop at Costco.
Today I saw a crazy report on Fox News. They said a study at Purdue University had concluded that 60% of us are going to get the flu, and about 25% of us will be pretty ill. That sounds horrendous. I can’t find information on the percentage of people who get the seasonal flu. Surely it’s not 60%.
The thing that alarms me about the swine flu is that it’s the first flu I’ve ever encountered that has an appreciable chance of killing me. I don’t even like having a sore throat. Death is considerably worse.
If you have Costco and a freezer, you can pile up all sorts of stuff to eat while people die around you. This isn’t my objective, as I stuff the freezer. But it works out that way.
The study also says we’re not going to get vaccinated early enough to make a dent in the contagion. Nice work, Mr. Obama. I’m sure you and your family have already had the vaccine. Don’t you worry about the rest of us. We will try not to die in front of your motorcade.
October 20th, 2009 at 7:29 PM
I know. We had a timely message on Sunday concerning peace. And also of course anxiety and worry. One message I needed to hear!
October 20th, 2009 at 8:48 PM
Dying in front of Teh Won’s motorcade would be racist.
October 20th, 2009 at 10:12 PM
Repeat after me: swine flu is no more dangerous than the regular flu. Swine flu is no more virulent than the regular flu. All of the drama is simply media hype to keep you watching the news. The only people who need to have any concern about the swine flu – as they do with the regular flu – are pregnant women, very young children, and the elderly.
October 20th, 2009 at 11:27 PM
The thing to remember about the 60% statistic is that it’s for the population as a whole. So it might be 80% of young kids (schools breed flu like nothing else, most young kids I’ve known get it every year no matter what), and 80% of people in large cities who ride subways or fly regularly. It’s entirely possible that 60% means “less than 1 out of 10 relatively healthy people who live in spread out neighborhoods and don’t breath other people’s saliva daily or have virus ridden kids”. Also you’re pretty much in the lowest risk bracket for dying of it or even getting severely sick.
However anything that means stuffing a freezer with quality food… well that’s a good thing.
October 21st, 2009 at 4:16 AM
You need a generator powered by a giant propane tank to keep the freezer running when they institute rolling blackouts because the FPL power plant people are dead from flu and global warming.
October 21st, 2009 at 6:31 AM
Meh. We were all supposed to die of SARS and bird flu by now.
October 21st, 2009 at 7:58 AM
From http://www.flu.gov:
“In a typical year, approximately 5 to 20 percent of the population gets the seasonal flu and approximately 36,000 flu-related deaths are reported.”
I wonder how Purdue came up with their numbers?
October 21st, 2009 at 9:56 AM
Of course, if a lot of people are nasty-sick and/or dying, is the local tinker toy power company going to be able to maintain its operations so as to successfully keep the electricity flowing to your freezer?
October 21st, 2009 at 12:24 PM
The swine flu is proving more contagious than the seasonal flu. It is also much more likely to kill young, healthy people. The elderly are actually safer than we are. And because the vaccine has been so slow to arrive, it would hit more people even if it were not more contagious.
October 21st, 2009 at 5:11 PM
Not to mention the growing numbers of anti-vaccination cranks (who belief the urban legend that vaccines cause autism and don’t get their children vaccinated)
October 21st, 2009 at 5:51 PM
I continue to think back to the mid-70s when swine flu was also supposed to kill us all. The government (Ford administration) pushed the manufacturers to make a vaccine. The manufacturers didn’t want to release it because it had not been properly tested. The government forced them to release it and agreed to indemnify them.
Of course, more people were made severely sick or died from the vaccine than got the swine flu. I don’t see how now is any different.
October 22nd, 2009 at 9:19 AM
Juan you realize that we have known that the swine flu was coming since last year? That is one HUGE difference between 1976 and 2008. Not mention that fact in at least two high risk groups (pregnant women and asthmatics) the fatality rate is over 25%. This is going to be Katrina/New Orleans on a national scale.
With most of the people playing the part of the rather dumb residents…
October 22nd, 2009 at 2:24 PM
MunDane68 – I know that folks have predicted the coming of the swine flu since last year. We knew the swine flu was coming for months and months and months in 1976, too. The predictions then were as dire as yours now. The devastation never happened then. Will it now? Who knows?