Posted by
Jan@Oasis on Friday, November 13, 2009 7:43:17 PM
I have figured out how the bumbling, stumbling, federal government and their buddies at the CDC should have handled the BIG SWINE FLU non-CRISIS.
They should have done...nothing. Sorry, B.O., that this didn't turn out to be the chance you hoped it would be for you to declare a national emergency (though you did declare it one, it fell flat) and grab even more power for the guv'mint. The swine flu is turning out to be, for the most part, a milder flu than the seasonal flu often is, and all the time and money wasted on tryng to ram through a vaccine for every living creature in the country would have been better spent on the now-in-shorter-supply seasonal flu vaccine. Or just give the $$ to the people and let them spend it on Theraflu or hot toddies. Probably would've been more helpful.
The fact is, the population would have been better served if it had been exposed to the swine flu, allowed to acquire it and build a herd immunity to it, and then when and if it came around again, even if it were more virulent, we would all be far more immune than we will be after this little experiment in government inefficiency. Herd immunity comes from a disease actually infecting a certain percentage of the populace, and not from random vaccinations fired at the citizenry here and there, but not nearly everywhere. There is some disagreement on how much vaccines ever contribute to herd immunity, but suffice to say that with a milder form of flu, you will build up more immunity if people get it than if they don't.
My grandson had it, as did numerous friends and relatives--all recovered without incident and are now able to spread around their little antibodies whenever the opportunity presents itself. I think that my children, two of whom were little tots at the time of the first big SWINE FLU non-CRISIS, still had some immunity from that last visit by the virus to the U.S. Much was made of the illness at the time, but once again the vaccine did not do all it was supposed to and in fact proved more dangerous to many people than the flu itself. It looks as though enough people acquired it to provide some herd immunity to it at this juncture. I and a goodly portion of my family spent hours cooped up in a cabin with my grandson spewing swine flu virus all over the place (at the time, we didn't know that's what he had), and not one of us got it from him, from the three-month old to the 67 year old. He had a week of feeling crummy and then bounced back like healthy six-year-olds tend to do from most things. Thank God, and I sympathize profoundly with victims who did not recover or who lost loved ones. That happens every year with the seasonal flu as well. But the government overreacted, overreached and ended up looking like the fools they generally are.
Don't misunderstand me: my whole family gets a flu shot every year, and I gave them for Mollen Clinics for years. But this was a manufactured crisis with the flames of panic fanned on a daily basis by the government, the media and the CDC. It is fine to try to be prepared for an illness, and to manufacture as much vaccine as possible, and to distribute it to those most at risk, but in this case the people were led to believe that this was far more serious and deadly than it was--and I know that people knew it because I heard a doctor on CNBC at the very start of it all say that this was a relatively mild flu and people shouldn't be inordinately frightened about it. Big, overblown promises were made by the administration and were never going to be kept--and people who really did need the vaccine didn't get it, and many who didn't need it got it, including the Gitmo goons. Or so I heard. If that's true, well someone's got some more 'splainin' to do.
Anyway, I think it would be good if everyone tried not to worry too much, took good care of himself or herself and of course--because you are too stupid to know this and need the guv'mint to instruct you--wash your hands children and don't cough on people. I do take issue with coughing into your elbow though--if you hold babies all day long, as I do every chance I get, that's right where the baby's head is. Duh. They can't even get that right. Wishing you all a happy, healthy Thanksgiving and Christmas. Who knows if I'll write anymore before that.