The Bird Flu

Salmonella, antibiotics and now this. When will chicken ever be safe?

It seems that the government is calling for a state of panic amongst U.S. citizens. Is it necessary? Well, my take on it is: not yet anyway. They kind of jumped the gun. The way our collective attention to news issues tends to skip from story to story, I suspect most Americans will no longer be thinking about bird flu by the time it reaches the States. If it reaches the States.

It seems to me that this may just be another Anthrax in the making. My intention is not to jinx the people of the United States. I guess I just get tired of unnecessary scares. Which is not to say that I don’t think people should be prepared. But maybe we should be prepared for more than one little flu, or one bio warfare tactic, or one… who knows what’ll be next?

My thoughts?

• YES Airlines should require coughing passengers to wear surgical masks. Who wants the regular flu or even a cold?
• YES Companies should be prepared for situations in which 50% of their workforce calls out sick. I worked at a small firm a few years back and literally 9 of our 21 employees fell ill during the same week one winter.
• YES We should consider what public (and private) buildings could successfully be used to house hundreds or thousands of people should the need arise. This goes not only for quarantine measures, but also natural disasters and so forth. How about the people displaced by hurricane Katrina? Similar occurrences will likely happen again during your lifetime.
• NO We should not be scared of every little flu, virus, bug or bacteria found overseas. Yes, they exist. And yes, you might get sick some day. But is it really worth freaking out about in the meantime? No, probably not. Take reasonable precautions and get on with your life.

This entry was posted on July 4, 2007 at 3:17 pm and is filed under News & Ideas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.