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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated
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From: LindyBill4/27/2009 12:35:15 AM
   of 793846
 
Why you should fear Swine Flu

By Curzon on General

This is a near complete repost of my 2005 post Why you should fear Avian Flu.


The last deadly flu epidemic broke out almost 90 years ago in 1918. How quickly did the flu spread? From PBS.org comes this map that shows how the virus spread across the United States in just two weeks.

At the time, the United States had an excellent rail system that assisted the spread across the country. Transcontinental travel was limited to boats, and it took weeks to cross the Atlantic. But these are ancient forms of transportation when compared to the speed and efficiency of interstate highways and air travel that we enjoy today. And the capacity is significantly greater as well. In an age when you can fly from London to Lagos or New York to New Dehli within a day, the swine flu will spread like nothing seen before in human history if it connects from human to human.

In retrospect, it appears that the Avian flu was controlled because it never passed from human to human. We can hope the same stays true for swine flu, but from the epicenter in Mexico City we're already seeing cases emerge in Texas, California, Kansas, and possibly New York. As with SARS and the avian flu scare of 4 years ago, the WHO and world governments are acting as quickly as possible to prevent its spread. But as the map above shows, if the flu does begin to expand across the map like wildfire, there may be nothing that anyone can do to stop it. feedproxy.google.com
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