Not So Scary Swine Flu

This is a cross posting from a blog I wrote for the Republican Jewish Coalition.

For months now we have been hearing, reading, and watching sensationalized reports in the news about the emerging pandemic that is “Swine Flu”. Early projections from the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology estimated between 30,000 and 90,000 deaths this year! When stories began to emerge during the summer that the deaths hadn’t reached the catastrophic proportions originally projected, the response from authorities was that dark and dismal days were ahead of us once the dreaded flu season descended upon us. (Cue scary music.)

We were scared. MSNBC made a map. And Johnson & Johnson, makers of Purell hand sanitizer, made a fortune.

But reports surfaced this week that the H1N1 virus might not be as deadly as originally thought. Doctors are now estimating somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000 deaths this year can be expected from the virus, and most of them will be amongst those who already had some underlying condition. As chilling as that may sound, though, it is absolutely no different from situation we face every winter with the regular old seasonal flu.

On average, about 36,000 people die after catching the seasonal flu virus. And, as with the H1N1 deaths, they usually happen in people with already weakened immune systems. To be clear, though, tens of thousands of people dying from a viral infection each year is nothing to be taken lightly. But when the average number of seasonal flu deaths is roughly smack dab in the middle of the projected H1N1 mortality projection, it sounds like the extent of our Swine Flu paranoia should end where it usually does during every other flu season.

So, what do we do? Well, aside from viewing the President’s science advisors as melodramatic doom-mongers, I’m going to take a deep breath, relax, and enjoy my winter just as I have done every previous year.