I Went to Mexico and all I Got Was this Lousy Swine Flu
6 May
The world is going mal over this swine flu thing. It’s a bit of a major over reaction in my mind. I mean everyone is going nuts about face masks and shit, while MILLIONS of people have AIDS and people still don’t wear condoms. It just doesn’t make any sense.
I was reading a few posts about the general overreaction worldwide, and these are some of the more extreme ones.
Health authorities in New Zealand reckon if you think youre sick, you should drive yourself to the hospital, beep your hooter three times, and wait for doctors and nurses to escort you to a quarantine station. Three times? what if you fuck up and push it four times. or sort of half almost push it then relaise you might not have pushed it properly then push it again. Leaves too much margin for error for my liking.
At Paris airports, baggage handlers are refusing to offload bags that come from Spain or Mexico. Travellers from Mexico are pretty hacked off about this one.
In the US, anti-immigrant activists are taking advantage of the situation and general animosity against Latino immigrants, advising people to “stay away from Mexicans” to prevent swine flu. What the fuck is wrong with them?
Japan is requiring entry visas for Mexican visitors because of the virus. This makes no sense, so what if a Mexican then gets a visa?? Ooooh wait they’ll just deny the visa.
In Shanghai, 71 Mexican nationals were quarantined in a hotel.
Not to be outdone, Egypt has ordered the slaughter of 350,000 pigs, despite the fact that the current outbreak is transmitted from person-to-person rather than pig-to-person. Naturally the Christians (who incidentally run the lucrative pork industry there) are pretty hacked off. The muslim goverment couldn’t give a fuck though cos they don’t give a shit about pigs.
Singapore has effectively enacted a blanket quarantine of all passengers arriving from Mexico, requiring them to stay in isolation for seven days.
“Someone who has flu symptoms shouldn’t think they can come to Acapulco for the weather and get better — that some fresh air and tequila and discos are going to make them forget about everything,” Said Acapulco Mayor Manuel Anorve. “So we ask them to be responsible and not come.”
Mexico is at the forefront of the fight against the influenza epidemic and is cooperating with the World Health Organization. The latest reports from the Mexican health ministry put the count of Influenza infections there at 701, with 26 deaths.
Ok so 26 deaths… well I read a very informative post over at mycapetown.co.za which puts this all into perspective. I was thinking about writing an article about this but Bangers and Nash has hit the nail on the head.
Here’s what they said about comparing this massive pandemic with other pandemics… Couldn’t have said it better myself…
Plague of Athens, 430 BC. Typhoid fever killed a quarter of the Athenian troops, and a quarter of the population over four years. The sheer virulence of the disease prevented its wider spread; i.e. it killed off its hosts at a rate faster than they could spread it (fucking hardcore!).
Antonine Plague, 165–180. Killed a quarter of those infected, and up to five million in all. At the height of a second outbreak, the Plague of Cyprian (251–266), which may have been the same disease, 5,000 people a day were said to be dying in Rome (bear in mind that the world’s population hadn’t even reached a billion).
Plague of Justinian, from 541 to 750, was the first recorded outbreak of the bubonic plague. It started in Egypt, and reached Constantinople the following spring, killing 10,000 a day at its height. The plague went on to eliminate a quarter to a half of the human population. It caused Europe’s population to drop by around 50% between 550 and 700.
Black Death, started 1300s. The total number of deaths worldwide is estimated at 75 million people.
Third Pandemic, killed 10 million people in India alone.
Cholera. The first cholera pandemic, between 1817 and 1860, was estimated to have exceeded 15 million dead mark. Another 23 million died between 1865 and 1917. Russian deaths during a similar time period exceeded 2 million.
Influenza – The “Spanish flu”, 1918–1919. By October 1918, it had spread to become a world-wide pandemic and eventually infected an estimated one third of the world’s population (or ?500 million persons). In six months, some 50 million were dead.
The “Asian Flu“, 1957–58, caused about 2 million deaths globally.
The “Hong Kong Flu“, this pandemic of 1968 and 1969 killed an estimated one million people worldwide.
HIV and AIDS AIDS could kill 31 million people in India and 18 million in China by 2025, according to projections by U.N. population researchers. AIDS death toll in Africa may reach 90-100 million by 2025. (Though I think they have been saying this for some time now)
Smallpox – during the 20th century, it is estimated that smallpox was responsible for 300–500 million deaths. As recently as early 1950s an estimated 50 million cases of smallpox occurred in the world each year.
Measles – In roughly the last 150 years, measles has been estimated to have killed about 200 million people worldwide. In 2000 alone, measles killed some 777,000 worldwide. There were some 40 million cases of measles globally that year.
Tuberculosis – One–third of the world’s current population has been infected, and new infections occur at a rate of one per second. Annually, 2 million people die from the disease worldwide. During the 20th century, tuberculosis killed approximately 100 million people.
Leprosy – In 2002, 763,917 new cases were detected. It is estimated that there are between one and two million people permanently disabled because of leprosy.
Malaria – Each year, there are approximately 350–500 million cases of malaria.
