Are you sufficiently hysterical about the swine flu? Running around wringing your hands and hyperventilating? No! Well, why not? Didn't you hear someone coughing in church this morning? Swine flu! Didn't you hear anyone sneeze, blow his nose, snort, clear his throat?....swine flu!
Really, it's epidemic...No, make that pandemic....I mean titanic...and also very serious. The president said so. He declared a national emergency.
The question is what does that mean? In a "national emergency" what new powers are given to what groups? At present it seems to mean little more than allowing hospitals to facilitate removing patients to alternate facilities and lifting some of the privacy restrictions under HIPAA rules. But we all know how creative this President is at finding unenumerated powers in the executive branch. Maybe there will be a swine flu czar.
Is there, in fact, a swine flu pandemic? Who knows? Few doctors are testing. That doesn't keep these "scientists" from making a firm diagnosis though. I have run into more folks lately who went to the doctor and were told they have the "swine flu." Were they tested? NO! So what got them designated as carriers of the plague? They had a fever over 101 degrees, had aches and chills, a cough, and perhaps nausea. Hmmm...sounds like every viral infection I've had in the past ten years. So were they all swine flu? Or were none of them swine flu? Who knows? But it sure helps build up the numbers to claim a national emergency if you designate every viral illness from the common cold to the worst achy fever crud as swine flu.
And even though doctors aren't testing for it and are presuming everyone who gets sick has it, they still want you to get the vaccine for it because what you had probably wasn't the swine flu after all. Does this sound a little nutty? It does to me, but it sure makes for drama. Now is it tragedy or comedy?
Home CBS News Investigates Oct. 21, 2009
Swine Flu Cases Overestimated?
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