IS SWINE flu really about to overtake the country or is it just Government hype and scaremongering to distract us from the economic recession and MPs’ extortionate expenses claims?
In reality, isn’t this H1N1 strain of flu no more dangerous than the regular seasonal flu? Is there any reason for real concern yet?
It is not a pandemic or even close to becoming one, despite the World Health Organisation’s alerts. Although the WHO has raised its alert level to “imminent” we seem no closer to a full-blown pandemic than we were at the beginning.
It is flu. And flu makes you feel ill. If you get it, you should stay at home and rest. You will then get well again, unless you are very unlucky or have some complicating condition. It is best to avoid close contact with other people, as applies to the common cold.
Thankfully, all the cases in Britain so far appear to be in otherwise fit and healthy people who should all be able to fight off this virus. Obviously, if you get sick, you stay at home. But why does everyone who has ever come into contact with you – or in contact with someone else who may have come in contact with you – have to do the same?
Even the Department of Health has admitted: “There is not yet evidence of sustained person to person transmission – that is to say, different people in the community who have no obvious link to each other catching this disease.”
So is it really necessary to spend millions of pounds on a mass advertising campaign to tell us to cover our mouth and nose with a tissue when we cough and sneeze? Isn’t that normal behaviour anyway or does the Government think we all go around sneezing over each other?
It is really necessary to publish and deliver a leaflet to every home in the country telling us to “set up a network of flu friends” who can help us if we get ill?
Is it really necessary to close schools and disrupt children already stressed at the imminent prospect of GCSE and A-Level exams?
The same lunacy occurred in 2006 with bird flu. There was a ban on bird fairs, markets and shows. Commercial poultry owners had to list their birds on a central register.
Imports of live chickens from affected countries were banned. Poultry keepers were advised to feed their birds indoors. And wild birds were monitored for the virus.
The Government warned: “There is currently rising concern that a new influenza virus with pandemic potential will emerge and spread, and a further pandemic can be expected.
“When that will be is not known, but the consequences, when it does, will be serious. Around a quarter of the population could be affected, with over 50,000 deaths in the UK alone.”
A House of Lords committee reported that up to 75,000 Britons would die in an “inevitable” flu pandemic, mostly likely to be caused by bird flu. The World Health Organisation issued a statement that “one in four Britons could die”.
Yet this strain of the H5N1 virus rarely passes between humans and most of those infected were poultry workers. Three years on, we are still waiting for an evolved strain that can pass from person to person and lead to a pandemic.
The same scaremongering surrounded SARS in 2004. The public anxiety it caused spread faster and further than the virus.
The first outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome – the disease caused by the highly infectious RNA coronavirus – was controlled and the threatened epidemic never happened. Not one Briton died.
It is true that flu does have a long track record as a mass killer. The best known example is the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, which is estimated to have caused at least 50 million deaths worldwide (250,000 in this country). Strains of Asian flu also killed 33,000 in Britain in 1957-58 and 30,000 in 1968-69.
However, antiviral drugs have improved dramatically since then and swine flu appears to respond well to them.
Admittedly, the disease is believed to have killed more than 100 people in Mexico, but the healthcare system there is relatively poor.
Britain has been preparing for a flu pandemic for a number of years – whether this has been for the latest strain of H1N1 or some other flu virus mutation.
Every section of the National Health Service – at national, local and individual level – has a robust plan of action. But it has all been carried out behind closed doors with no need for the public to know what is going on.
Now the Government wants to look good, to blow its own trumpet, to show it can be in total control of something even though it is not the economy or MPs’ expenses.
So what better time than to scare us all into believing we would be wiped out by a flu virus but for the Government’s action? So we are warned of the lethal and devastating effect swine flu would have on us all if the Government wasn’t there to protect us.
It is saving us from a seriously dangerous threat. We can be proud of our Government as it boasts: “We are among the most prepared countries in the world.” We know we are in safe hands when the Government tells us “We are well-placed to deal with this new infection”.
Who cares whether MPs fiddle their expenses? Who cares whether people are losing their jobs and their homes and can’t afford to eat as the credit crunch continues to bite?
At least we won’t die from the flu – and we have the Government to thank for that.
