Swine flu (again), stupid news reports & even worse weather
Has anyone else noticed this about the recent swine flu reports that have been appearing...
Three more people in Britain have died after contracting swine flu, taking the number of fatal cases to seven. Abdullah Patel, 42, believed to be a teacher, and Asmaa Hussain, 9, both from Dewsbury in West Yorkshire, and an unnamed nine-year-old from London, all had “serious underlying health problems” before contracting the H1N1 virus, health officials said
...they all are at great pains to point out that as the corpses start to pile up – oh my oh my, the doom mongers might have been right all along – the MSM seems to be stressing that all of the stiffs had serious underlying health problems. Why? Do the government think that if reports start to emerge that this strain of flu is starting to kill otherwise healthy individuals the country will grind to a halt, people will start to hoard tinned food & civil unrest will erupt in Blighty’s otherwise well ordered curtain twitching leafy suburbs?
Rest assured dear readers, your humble correspondent remains utterly sanguine in the face of this nonsense is only because he recognises that this strain of flu is just like every other strain of flu – it kills the old & the weak. Indeed, maintaining my unusually chipper disposition, I once again look for the upside & upon not so sober reflection have cause to ponder that a fair to middling pandemic might well be a blessing in disguise
Firstly, the flu should wipe out just about everyone that is currently receiving treatment in hospital, so no more bed blockers & the wholesale decimation of the waiting lists should mean that at last government targets will be met. Combine both of these & we might be able to see the sort of spending cuts that we are going to need in the National Health Service spending if UK PLC is every going to get close to a balanced budget
Next up comes the Third World & by the Third World, I don’t mean Peckham for a change. Quite correctly the multi-national pharmaceutical companies are more concerned with their shareholder dividend policy than giving away Tamiflu to sub-Saharan African nations whose populations will be dead long before they are finally decimated by HIV Aids. This will enable us to slash the amount of money we currently spunk away on overseas aid. Another win for the taxpayer.
But to get back to these health warnings about the health news, it’s exactly the damn same when you watch the evening news. Just before they cut to a clip about the latest lot of indigenous tribesmen that have when busy massacring the indigenous tribesmen from the next village, the long faced news reader will announce that viewers might find some of the scenes that follow distressing. Of course the scenes are distressing – even in my rather warped wibbly wobbly whiskey world, kids getting acquainted with the pointy end of a machete is distinctly unpleasant – I don’t need to be pre-warned so that I can work myself into a frothing lather of self righteous indignation. I can figure it out all by myself
However this predilection to issue ‘warnings’ because we might not be able to cope with what is happening in the news doesn’t finish there – have you noticed that we don’t get rain anyone. So sorry to disappoint readers on the left hand side of the pond who might continue to labour under the misapprehension that it is always raining in dear old Blighty: it doesn’t & Al, it’s not because of global frigging warming - it’s because every time the Met Office radar detects a slightly off white cloud, they issue a sodding Severe Weather Warning.
You utter utter nangers ... until such time as Captain Noah tacks past my office window (which incidentally is on the 9th floor), I strongly suspect that my trusty old Swaine Adeney brolly will suffice.
Below is the Met Office’s weather warning map for Tuesday
The area coloured orange was covered by one of the aforementioned Severe Weather Warnings & the severe weather in question ... your common or garden summer thunderstorms. Just like the ones you remember from your childhood. No more, no less.
Clarkie-poos hit it on the head on Sunday evening when without recourse to the sort of lower deck language that I would use in such circumstances, he pointed out that what is these days what is referred to in concerned tones as a Level 2 Heat Warning used to be called a beautiful summers day.
Strange at it may seem, not only can I read The Sun without my lips moving & I still just about have the mental capacity to work out if I will require an overcoat in the morning or what I want to watch or not
Comments
Well in North America it has been harder on young people than old. It is thought that older people have anti-bodies left from a prior similar flu virus that went through the population in the past.
Posted by: toad | July 9, 2009 4:10 AM
not making my life much fun isolated at home for last 2 days save for friend doing drive by ice cream drop (essential supplies)hey but if it polishes off the dregs (chain de feu: al la napoleon) MAGNIFICENT result and I will suffer in silence ......or should I pay a sneezing coughing visit to the local job centre
Posted by: captain cobra | July 9, 2009 11:44 AM
Do the deceased have normal British names of today?
Posted by: dr kill | July 9, 2009 6:28 PM
Doc - 'Abdullah Patel' & 'Asmaa Hussain'. So pretty much normal British names these days!
Posted by: Mr Free Market | July 9, 2009 6:35 PM
my father suggests it being Friday - the new british day of worship - that I put a bin bag on my head and go and cough and sneeze at the local mosque
Posted by: captain cobra | July 11, 2009 10:22 AM
that this strain of flu is just like every other strain of flu – it kills the old & the weak.
SNIP
Actually the strain in the great pandemic of 1918 ("Spanish Flu") targeted the young and healthy.
Ther is a fairly good case that has been made that the disease moved fom pigs to humans at the great British base of Etaples, France. Several RAMC officers wrote journal articles about a strange, fatal disease that hit the camp as early as 1916. Records indicate a large number of pigs were kept to dispose of kitchen waste and were slaughtered when needed. So you have men from all over the Empire, crowded togther, in close proximity to swine...
Posted by: Beausaber | July 23, 2009 6:24 PM
that this strain of flu is just like every other strain of flu – it kills the old & the weak.
SNIP
Actually the strain in the great pandemic of 1918 ("Spanish Flu") targeted the young and healthy.
Ther is a fairly good case that has been made that the disease moved fom pigs to humans at the great British base of Etaples, France. Several RAMC officers wrote journal articles about a strange, fatal disease that hit the camp as early as 1916. Records indicate a large number of pigs were kept to dispose of kitchen waste and were slaughtered when needed. So you have men from all over the Empire, crowded togther, in close proximity to swine...
Posted by: Beausaber | July 23, 2009 6:24 PM