Sunday, October 30, 2005

Flu blogging: tons of info

Way too much to really blog about, since I've not been reading on this for a few days now. Just follow the flu links on the side.

Have to mention this interesting piece on the H5N1 blog, "Talking about the Pandemic."

H5N1 is still basically a media issue, not a talk-to-the-neighbours issue. So the people I talk to tend to be media people: talk-show hosts, print journalists, and even some online journalists.

That's fine. As people listen and watch and read, a kind of silent preparedness develops—people aren't rushing out to buy masks and case lots of soup, but they're becoming accustomed to the thought of a crisis. In 1941, Pearl Harbor was a shock for Americans—but not the idea of going to war. They'd had years to get used to conflicts in Asia and Europe, and they knew it would eventually involve them.


And, in India, the Economic Times is talking about the flu. The most bizarre thing is that the article doesn't mention the word "pandemic" once, or the possibility of the mutation of the current H5N1 strain into a more contagious h2h variety. This is just incompetent!

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