What Is This World Coming To?

The World Health Organization issued a warning that “all of humanity is under threat” and called for “global solidarity” to combat the virus, which it has labeled a Category Five threat — the second-highest rating for a pandemic disease.

In Mexico there have been eight confirmed deaths from the virus, with another 160 suspected swine flu fatalities. There have been 93 confirmed cases in the US, 19 in Canada, 13 in New Zealand, five in Britain, four in Germany, 10 in Spain, two in Israel, and one in Austria.

The US has confirmed the first death outside of Mexico on Wednesday, while a further “probable” case of swine flu has emerged in Glasgow, Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond told MSPs today. -UK Telegraph

Let’s look at that again.  Eight confirmed deaths and 160 suspected deaths at Ground Zero in Mexico.  One death in America — a baby who contracted the virus in Mexico City.  And maybe a couple hundred cases world-wide, all of which were relatively mild.

There are emerging a few voices of reason, like this one, (from the LATimes of all places)

Flu viruses are known to be notoriously unpredictable, and this strain could mutate at any point — becoming either more benign or dangerously severe. But mounting preliminary evidence from genetics labs, epidemiology models and simple mathematics suggests that the worst-case scenarios are likely to be avoided in the current outbreak.

“This virus doesn’t have anywhere near the capacity to kill like the 1918 virus,” which claimed an estimated 50 million victims worldwide, said Richard Webby, a leading influenza virologist at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.

In the U.S., between 5% and 20% of the population becomes ill and 36,000 people die — a mortality rate of between 0.24% and 0.96%.

Dirk Brockmann, a professor of engineering and applied mathematics at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., used a computer model of human travel patterns to predict how this swine flu virus would spread in the worst-case scenario, in which nothing is done to contain the disease.

After four weeks, almost 1,700 people in the U.S. would have symptoms, including 198 in Los Angeles, according to his model. That’s just a fraction of the county’s thousands of yearly flu victims.

How is the White House handling it?   There are rumors floating about that the Oval Office is considering the imposition of martial law.    Vice President Joe Biden is advising all Americans to avoid travel on subways or aircraft.

“I wouldn’t go anywhere in confined places now,” Biden said when asked whether he would advise family members to use public transportation.

“I would tell members of my family, and I have, I wouldn’t go anywhere in confined places now. It’s not that it’s going to Mexico, it’s you’re in a confined aircraft when one person sneezes it goes all the way through the aircraft. That’s me. I would not be, at this point, if they had another way of transportation suggesting they ride the subway. “

The vice president also implied that schools should be closed as the threat of swine flu increases. (New York News)

EIGHT confirmed fatalities in Mexico.  ONE confirmed fatality in the US.  NONE elsewhere in the world.   What was it that Rahm Emmanuel said?  Never let a good crisis go to waste?