Put your surgical masks on everybody. The swine flu is here.
Whether it is some new super disease, anthrax in our mail or terrorists in our neighborhoods, it is common for Americans to wake up with the daily blues from waking up to the daily news. And to make sure we get our daily dose of the blues, the media is constantly reminding us of these new fantastic and unorthodox ways to die.
Recently the World Health Organization (WHO) brought back one of the most useless scales in the media: the threat level. The threat level is a color coordinated graphic that all major news outlets use to physically show the “threat” of a certain issue. Right now, the swine flu is at its highest level: phase 5, widespread human infection. That would be a pretty sweet name for a zombie movie.
This is not the first time Americans have seen this type of graphic.
The threat level graphic was used by the Homeland Security Advisory System which was invented following the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center.
The Homeland Security Advisory System has five different levels ranging from severe (red) to low (green), which basically defines how terrified one is supposed to be at that specific time. If the Homeland Security Advisory System’s goal was to scare Americans, then mission accomplished.
In Michael Moore’s 2004 documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11,” he asks a woman from a little town in Virginia, with a population of 2,016, if there was a terrorist target there. She gestured to a building behind her, stating that they “have a big spaghetti supper in (there).” And just as paranoia had swept the U.S. during that time, it is now sweeping the world with the fear of a swine flu pandemic.
As of last Friday, there had been only 2,500 confirmed cases of swine flu across the world according to WHO. That is about 0.00000035 of the U.S. Census Bureau’s estimated 6.78 billion people residing on Earth. And out of the 2,500 confirmed cases, 2,100 are in North America, including all 46 deaths according to WHO. Yet one cannot turn on the news without hearing about how out of control this pandemic is.
It is all about the television news ratings, and the more terrified people are of a worldwide event, the more we tune into the news to see if things have changed at all.
So, instead of concerning oneself with all of these super diseases that we have no power over, one should relax and simply control what one can and the swine flu pandemic should be no more dangerous than “Southpark’s” pan-flute epidemic.
