03-16-2020, 01:31 PM
(03-16-2020, 10:07 AM)sbarrera Wrote: I'm sure many of us have seen memes bringing up H1N1 in comparison with COVID-19 - usually to make a partisan point about the administration's handling of one or the other. Looking back at the 2009 pandemic data, it looks like it was pretty serious - 59 million Americans infected, 265,000 hospitalized, and 12,000 dead.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_p...ted_States
But I don't remember as strong a social reaction as is happening with COVID-19. What's different? This would have been at the beginning of the 4T, as opposed to the middle. We were just getting through a financial crisis that had already started, rather than dealing with one *caused* by the reaction to the pandemic. What else is different? Were we just no there in the Crisis mood yet, or intensely enough? Is it that COVID-19 has been so demonstrably bad for other countries (Italy in particular) so it is more ominous a threat?
The biggest difference: H1N1 was already well known and understood, though not well supported with remedies. It is an influenza of a type we recognize, and one that can be addressed by a vaccine, assuming it can be predicted a year in advance. Once it's out there, we're in the same predicament as COVID-19, but only until the end of the flu season. If it look's persistent, the vaccine will be created.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.