-Jane Hayashi-
Friday, February 5, 2010
H1N1 Now
Just a few months ago, Swine Flu was such a big deal. Now it seems like it is just a joke made in passing. I am not trying to say that the H1N1 virus is not a big deal, my Uncle was just diagnosed with it, and I know a few others who have as well. But why is it that this "epidemic" was such a controversy, but now it seems like people have some new "fad" to obsess about. This country has made 120 million vaccines which have been distributed nationwide, yet only about 70 million have actually been used. And it is said that 35 million more have been made, but are obviously not needed, and may be donated overseas. Personally, I got my H1N1 shot with my mom. It was after the beginning of the whole scare, and was only about a month ago. But it was the personal decision of my family to get it. I just do not understand why, if everyone was so scared of it we now have such a surplus of the vaccine. It obviously is a health issue, but it could have been amplified by word of mouth and the media?
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5 comments:
Well obviously it is always better to be safe than sorry. But I do know that the flu has been known to wipe out lots of people and there have been several influenza pandemics throughout history. I guess doctors were afraid another pandemic would happen.
Safety is always the number one priority. But the issue of just going nuts when your health is at stake. When you say "there's a computer virus". People just get scared and are just extremely careful with what they do on the computer. But if you say "there's a computer virus that will kill people now", people will go crazy knowing that computer science has taken over and the human race is now at stake.
This is not the same as the whole H1N1 scare, yes, but it's just a matter of how easily people overlook a situation or make it a bigger deal than it is. The flu is a flu. It's a virus. It's going to mutate at some point; it's just a matter of when. And it just happened that the H1N1 virus was a virus that happened to hit MUCH sooner than doctors and CDC had expected. Plus it was able to affect humans, chickens, AND pigs. When something that is only supposed to infect one species threatens to infect the human species, people tend to get more scared... usually.
And I do find the fact that there was such a big deal over H1N1, then mass vaccination productions, then a massive surplus accompanying that, to be quite absurd too.
I do think that the swine flu was amplified by the media because it was the cause of some deaths. However, the regular flu has caused many deaths. The media has portrayed the swine flu as a significant issue, but the regular flu has killed more people.
They come and they go. Avian, swine, what's next? Fate will tell.
I understand what you're saying. Even though swine flu can be and is very serious , much of why it was such a controversy was due to hype. I got a swine flu shot three weeks ago just in case, though. Sooner or later, there will be another disease that the media will blow out of proportion too.
-Molly Cheng
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