HappySqurriel said:
There is a massive difference between taking reasonable precautions and buying into media driven fear. In the case of most of these paper-tiger pandemics those in charge of public policy are worried because these illnesses have the possibility to have 50% or 100% higher fatality rate compared to most influenza viruses; but (to the average person) this changes the probability of a healthy person dying from these illnesses from 0.01% to 0.02%. One of these days we will have another influenza virus which is as deadly as the spanish flu was; unfortunately, after decades of "Crying Wolf" to gain ratings people are likely to think that it is just media hype.
By the way, the mainstream media's use of fear is hardly limited to meaningless illnesses ... A kidnapping or murder will happen somewhere, and thousands of miles away people will be absolutely convinced that they will be the next target. You don't see children on playgrounds anymore because 1 in 1,000,000 children are kidnapped from a playground each year.
Essentially, people are living their lives in fear of events with insanely low probabilities of happening; while living lifestyles which will certainly shorten their lives by decades and leave them with slow and painful deaths. |
No, I'm with you for the other stupid stuff, but as I said, it's not necessarily about the first noticed strain of a pandemic but the possibilty of a far more dangerous mutation that comes after. The first wave of the Spanish flu was pretty normal, and those killed by it were mostly the very old and the very young, like most diseases of this nature. But the second wave was killing healthy young people.
The Spanish flu is regarded to have a death rate of "over 2.5%". Predictions and simulations have shown that if another Spanish flu-like pandemic hits, over 100 million would likely die worldwide. I see nothing wrong with the media and scientists attempting to stay ahead of that and freak out over every new strain. Freaking out could possibly save millions of lives in such a case. Is it really worth being a cynic about this when possibily millions of lives could be at stake? Even if they're only doing it for ratings, this is a situation where 'bad' intentions can yield something good.
Again, I'm only talking in regards to pandemics, because I think they are a special case to be regarded separately from the general public's freaking out to everything else. That kidnapping thing, this nuclear thing, and other things of the sort are just silly. But freaking out over pandemics is a great survival trait for us to have.
I don't think there will be a "crying wolf" situation. Some people may not buy into the media hype when it comes, but these people are generally the same people who already don't buy into media hype as it is.
