Pandemic? What's that?

It's a bit gray and hazy out in Streeterville, 53 degrees at the Mini. Yet I look out the windows on the 14th floor and a dinner cruise boat is making its way around the end of the little sprit of land that holds Navy Pier and the water treatment plant. Pretty soon they'll be close enough to my part of the lake that they'll be telling people about Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe and the 860-880 Lake Shore Drive buildings. People will show up on deck and flash their cameras at my building. Babs and I just wave at them. I doubt they realize anyone on the 14th floor is actually waving at them, but it amuses us. We're easily amused.

The word today, boys and girls is pandemic. An epidemic is an outbreak of a highly infectious disease that is widespread. A pandemic is an epidemic that is really widespread geographically. Currently we have a swine flu outbreak that has gone worldwide, sort of like Bono and U2. Can they be classified as a pandemic? Hmmm.

Now this current outbreak of swine flu that apparently has elements of swine flu, but also has some DNA that is similar to bird flu. It has killed over 100 people in Mexico, and the whole world is now on the verge of panic. The CDC (Center for Disease Control) in the U.S. is busy passing on alerts to the public. The WHO (World Health Organization) is busy trying to get the whole planet on alert. On a 1-6 scale the alert was just updated from 4 to 5. The President has just said that widespread school closings are a possibility. I hear students and educators across the land going "Yeeaaaaaaahhhhh!"

Pardon me for being a little bit suspect of the whole thing, but in my lifetime I have lived through a number of "threats to the entire planet." I have seen the public get in an uproar over a great many things that, in hindsight, turned out to be a bit overstated by the media, the government, and all the resident crazies in general. This flu outbreak may be serious, for the flu, but with modern healthcare in advanced societies I really doubt it is going to be the killer of millions that it is being hyped for. Mind you, I like a day or two off from work as much as the next guy. I like a snow day every now and again. When I taught school in Guam, we had typhoon days. I have photos of some guy windsurfing in the bay in 65 mph winds. Power went out, but nothing was really hurt. Now that 8.2 earthquake, that was another story. Survived that too.

Any of you out there been around long enough to remember Kahoutek? It was going to be the comet that smacked into the Earth and the crazies were out in force at the stoplights, passing out "The end of the world is coming," literature. All I remember about the actual comet is that I never even saw it, much less experienced any negative effects from it. I believe the Hale Bopp Comet produced much the same reaction in the public at large and produced much the same results. Halley's Comet (not to be confused with Bill Halley and the Comets) recurs with regularity and every time it shows up, it brings out the doomsayers. We're still here.

In 1976, I was working at the Southern Illinois University Health Service and as I recall, we were giving away free flu shots, Swine Flu Shots. The much ballyhooed Swine Flu outbreak of 1976 turned out to be a non-event. With all of that said, it is true that over 100 people, young healthy people have died of swine flu in Mexico. Of all the cases that have been verified at this point in the U.S., most have been reasonably mild in comparison. The one verified death in the U.S. was an infant, with minimal resistance to viral infections.

So pardon me if I am a bit skeptical. I encourage everyone to be alert. Take precautions. If there is a possibility that you are developing symptoms that are swine flu-like, by all means go to a doctor. As I understand it this flu bug is susceptible to Tamiflu. You should be alright. This is the U.S.A., not a 3rd world country, not a Stephen King novel where 3/4 of the world dies from a super flu bug, and the world gets divided into 2 camps, good guys and bad guys.

Perhaps I will be proven wrong, but I doubt it. I fully expect to be going to work for the next month without losing half my students to a flu pandemic. If, however, the CPS opts to shut down the schools for a few days to ensure the health of our students and staff, hey I could use a couple of days off, provided it is with pay.