Should we worry about the recent flu pandemic?

Should we worry about the recent flu pandemic?

Recently, the world is facing the “swine flu” pandemic. The disease is spreading like wildfire across the globe. Millions of people are panic. Is it necessary for us to get into red alert mode to combat the flu? Or is it just another overrated mass media hoo-haa to influence people’s emotion (so that news agencies can sell the news)?

For me, I’m going to act cool and puff cigar on my armchair as if nothing is happening. Here are some of the reasons why I’m not worrying much about this flu pandemic.

The governments are trying to prevent the flu from spreading.

Only individuals who are weak against the flu will die from it. Not every infected person will die. So don’t expect large scale piling of corpses on the streets. (Zombie apocalypse fantasy should be left in sci-fi stories, not reality).

The viruses that quickly kill their hosts will die off much faster than the viruses that keep the hosts alive. Sooner or later we will say bye bye to this flu. (Sorry, I forget where I have read about this fact. It’s something related to biological evolution)

The chance of dying from the flu is very low. The death rate per population is very insignificant –  so low that we have better chances of getting murdered by a psycho maniac than dying from this flu. Basic knowledge of probability will calm you down significantly at the event of “crisis” and help you to decide when you should worry. You can read more about disaster related statistics from the book Struck by Lightning by Jeffrey S. Rosenthal.

It’s more productive for me to focus on positive things in life and live happily. Imagine how your life will become if you keep worrying about things like Illuminati conspiracy theories, pollution, financial crisis, boogeymen in the closet, and all sorts of problems in this world. You will go crazy!

For goodness sake. This is not the first and last flu pandemic. We had the same problem before and this nasty havoc will vanish as predicted.

So my friends, maybe we should just enjoy a cuppa cappuccino and worry less about the flu, unless you want to enrich the already wealthy news agencies.

Tagged as: fear, flu, Health, life, media, pandemic, statistics