Swine Flu Prediction

Not since the 1969 when a drunk Ted Kennedy drove off of bridge that killed Mary Jo Kopechne has there been as much hoopla in our country as the H1N1 virus, better known as the swine flu. However, unlike Ted Kennedy who did not report this incident until the next morning, the H1N1 gets more reporting than anything else in this country - even more than Baltimore City Mayor Sheila Dixon's multiple ethics violations and investigations.

Many absent-minded Americans wonder when the pandemic will arrive and destroy all mankind as we know it. While there is a lot that we don't know about the swine flu, there is much that we do know.

We know that this is not the first swine flu outbreak in this county. In fact, there have been several in the recent past. There was the mass hysteria in 1976, a less hysterical one in 1988 that killed one person, and another in 1998 that injured several pigs. In 1976, F. David Matthews, the Director of Health, Education, and Welfare (now called the Department of Health and Human Services), infamously predicted that the 1976 strain would kill one million Americans. He was off by 999,999. Only one person died.

We also know that the overwhelming majority of people that are contracting the swine flu exhibit mild flu-like symptoms that require them to watch The Price is Right for a couple of days before returning to work or classes.

We also know that more people are killed by seasonal flu every day than the total number of deaths associated with this year's H1N1 strain. However, the seasonal flu is like the Baltimore Orioles - no one gives a crap.

However, as Obama's White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel so arrogantly stated on CBS' Face the Nation, "Never allow a crisis to go to waste. They are opportunities to do big things." Emanuel's communist tendencies are indicative of the Obama administration's thinking and have pushed our government to spend billions of dollars for a vaccine to help stop the spread of this virus.

So here is my prediction:

First - if the government does nothing, a few thousand people will get the virus and maybe a few dozen Americans will die - the overwhelming majority of those with existing illnesses and compromised immune systems. We will have saved billions of dollars.

Second - the government spends billions of dollars educating people about the benefits of washing their hands and getting a hurried untested flu shot to the market, a few thousand people will get the virus and a few dozen will die, and thousands of others will suffer the unintended long-term effects of an untested vaccine. However, by using this method, the government can say, "Look, our coordinated efforts helped prevent this from being a far worse pandemic that it could have been. We've made a strategic investment in the health of our working class families and that investment has paid off."

In the eyes of any politician, the second option is always better than the first.