I recently received the 2009 Annual Report of my county’s general health district. Splashed on the front page is the headline, “H1N1 Flu Campaign Breaks Local Records.” Wow. I didn’t realize the flu had such an impact in central Ohio. Or did it?
Turns out the records were not cases of the flu — there were only 29 of those throughout the year. No, the records set were these (from the front page of the annual report):
All for 29 cases. In a county of over 160,000 residents.
H1N1 certainly had an impact — it allowed the specter of big government to further haunt the soul of a once proud, independent region.
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Yep, I remember this H1N1 scam. With the attention it was getting at the time, you’d think the world was about to end in a violent epidemic. 4-5 or so months later, Mises is the first place where I get to hear about it again. Awesome.
In my local area the drug stores still have signs in the stores, on their doors, on their grass areas, etc. Earlier in the week Vons supermarkets even had the vacine on a radio ad. It never went away in California.
Mr. Fedako,
Please don’t point this out to your local government. Because then, instead of getting to read stories headlined “Local Authorities Apologize for Severely Overreacting to Pig Flu,” everyone will have to read stories headlined “Local Authorities’ Efforts Prevented H1N1 Epidemic in Central Ohio” and hear local news report teasers like “Local health officials may have saved tens [nah, let's go with hundreds] of thousands of lives with push for flu vaccinations. More at 11.”
So just sit on this one.
Exactly. Side-topic: I’m glad my tiger-repellent spray has been working so famously. You wouldn’t believe how few tigers I see wandering around northern California.
And I used my own H1N1-vaccination, composed of eating spaghetti on odd days of the week, and reading mises.org daily. What, you say that isn’t what prevented me from catching H1N1? Thousands of people became ill with it, but I didn’t; what more proof do you need?
Headline in 10 years: “Government record-reporting breaks national records”
Yes, our local TV news is also, all of a sudden reminiscing about pig fever.
Their favorite factoid is “600 DEATHS IN US!” Ok – so how many did the regular, seasonal flu kill? 20,000+?
Well…
In the rural MN area where I live, the epidemic was pretty serious. Over the course of about three weeks, the virus ran through all portions of the population. At one point, the local schools were reporting that a third of their students were absent due to the illness.
No vaccine was available at that point. By the time the vaccine became available, the epidemic had passed. Nevertheless, a massive immunization campaign was conducted. The papers were filled with admonishments to attend clinics held in gymnasiums, etc… However, attendance was spotty.
The strangest part about the whole thing is how few people were able to connect the government’s abysmal handling of the epidemic with the likely quality of “health care” under the then tentative socialized medical scheme.
So, how many people died? Sustained lifelong injuries? Was it any worse than a typical flu season?
According to the CDC, H1N1 has now been responsible for more than ten thousand deaths in the United States. Here is a link to their statistics.
http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/estimates_2009_h1n1.htm
I can’t find any data on deaths in my own area.
Don’t forget to take into consideration that many of those 18,000+ people vaccinated might have ended up with the flu, or passed it on to somebody else who was not vaccinated. Those 18000+ vaccines protected many more than 18000+ people.
Public works environment headline in 10 years: “Government record-reporting breaks national records”? Shay I can not understand your message.
government has made some rules for the workers, we should not irrespective to those
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