Our Look at Swine Flu

It is apparent that the entire world is currently living under fear of Swine Flue. In fact, visit a news site and it is almost certain that you will read about Swine Flue.

Yet through all this commotion about Swine Flu, we have somehow forgotten about the regular flu. Swine Flu has tragically killed over 7,000 people, however did it simply slip our minds that the regular flu kills over 36,000 people per year. 

As soon as Swine Flu travelled to countries of greater wealth, panic spread about its ramifications. Nevertheless, the danger of regular flu, far outweighs the dangers of Swine flu.

In a matter of months of the outbreak of Swine Flu, Apple released an application which shows the “Widespread Human Infection” in an area. In other words, the application supposedly showed the threat level by a series of maps. Thats all well and good, however why is it so important?

This article is not to say that the deaths of those infected by Swine Flue were not of great tragedy, yet why does it make headline news? 

Around 58 million people die per year from motor accidents, nearly 56 million people suffer deaths from cancer each year, yet in the short time which Swine Flu has been in the news only 7,000 people have died. 

Deaths are tragic no matter from what cause, but we are not focussing on the deaths anymore, we are simply focussing on the disease. We care more about the fact that it is a spreading disease rather than the people who have died from Swine Flu. After hearing the mortality rates of the illness, we solely think of our health with little sympathy for those already dead. We perceive Swine Flu’s mortality rates more as a warning than a obituary. We feel fear rather than sorrow. 

How did a disease alter our thought so much that we no longer feel empathy for the dead, but moreover plan to save our selves?