Stories like this one: US sends mixed message on bird flu threat are keeping a small pilot flame of incipient panic alive in the back of conciousness, so that if an outbreak of avian flu actually occurs, and particularly if it occurs in the United States, there will be severe panic. The avian flu is being ignored for the most part, but the stories are out there, comparing it to the Spanish Flu of 1918 with stories of how bad that pandemic was. An actual outbreak of human transmitted avian flu will be the trigger for mass hysteria in the developed countries that could be as bad as the outbreak itself.
And when people learn that the vaccine that is being promised is 18 months away, what then?
Posted on October 6, 2005 03:52 PM