C-span is all over it. (Here and Here).
John McCain earnestly wonders if closing the borders is called for given the "seriousness of this threat". Joe Lieberman, not to be out done, uses his position as committee chair to jump in and wonder if closing the borders is a good idea.
Yahoo News is featuring stories from every outlet, pushing the Missing White Girl vibes of the "Coming Pandemic".
MSNBC is headlining a banner promoting live streaming of the House Hearings, just begun, above the Chrysler bankruptcy, the Brits pull out of Afganistan forward bases, and the generated flap over VP Biden's truthful answer to a question on the morning shows.
Arm waving, voices hushed, or hysterical, earnest questions about threat, death and danger are permeating every news and information outlet on the web and broadcast media.
Update: For a little science and rational information check out the CDC. It will undermine John and Joe, but it may calm you.
Can we get a grip?
More people have died of heart attacks in the past 7 days than those who died of this new flu strain since it was identified in mid-March.
Yet, borders are being closed, people are standing around in masks trying to spot sick people entering various countries, and folks are having thermometers stuck in their ear, and being pulled from lines, if they have an elevated temp.
I am aware that it is a new mutation whose properties are as yet unknown. I know that it may well go dormant during the warm summer months when flu outbreaks typically do. I understand that it may well mutate during this period and the medications planned for release in the Fall may not be effective. I grasp that the virus may well re-emerge in the "flu season" as a killer.
What I don't understand is why, in the midst of an economic melt down that still threatens the entire globe with massive starvation, dislocation, and real threats of political chaos, the world seems obsessed with closing borders against an air borne virus!
Are we still paying the price for our government's refusal to treat science seriously for the past 30 years? Are the scientists and policy makers just flexing their wings and preening at the new attention they are getting from the world of politics? How much of the total political nonsense of the Mccains and Libermans, posturing for a dumbed down electorate, will we have to endure? (And, how much damage will they be willing to cause before they just shut the fuck up?)
It's the flu, folks. The flu makes you sick. The flu can kill people with compromised immune systems, the very young and the very old. People like me!
But can we please take a deep breath, exhale slowly through the mouth, and stop ginning up a global hysteria over the bloody damned FLU?