I work in an ER and we had to rent a trailer to handle all of the patients with flu like symptoms. These people where truly frightened. This fear was unnecessary. We see more deaths from the yearly flu then we did from H1N1. I feel the fear was media driven with little education provided.
Original Post
November 24, 2009
Title: Are we Ready for a Pandemic
I am a student at a major University and it seems everywhere you turn the phrase H1N1 can be heard. We have had two deaths from H1N1 at our university alone since the start of the fall semester. Talk of a vaccine gave hope to many students that they would be protected from the virus. However, once the vaccine arrived many students chose not to get the immunization. As stressed in our book, infectious disease is a leading cause of mortality around the world. Two of the top ten leading causes of death are infectious diseases. With this fact in mind, it is important that the United States population be educated on how vital it is to keep infectious disease under control. If the H1N1 virus is not contained, it could easily become a pandemic. The concept of a pandemic is not new to our society however. Pandemics can be traced back to the early beginnings of life. However, through technological advances such as immunizations, human immunity has been augmented giving the individuals the ability to fight off disease. The emergence of the H1N1 vaccine is yet another example of how technology has assisted our culture in evading a pandemic once again.
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