Epidemic (?)

The news is actually a few days old already, but recently the top federal health official announced the closing of schools in the Federal District and State of Mexico (we live in the latter).  He encouraged people to follow common sense hygiene and to avoid large gatherings, etc.

Now, from what I’ve heard so far, I have two comments.  First, this is big news.  Second, this is not big news.  Let’s go with the first:

This is big news

• It’s not a new thing for people to be concerned about a new flu pandemic.  It’s a very real concern.  Flu pandemics in the last century killed millions of people, and there’s reason to believe that a new pandemic could be just as dangerous if not worse.
• Anytime something new breaks out, and we don’t know what it is or where it comes from, it’s reason for concern.  It’s right for people to be on the alert, and for researchers to be studying, etc.
• The illness, whatever it is, is causing deaths.  If we can catch them early, we can save lives.  If people think it’s "just the flu", they won’t be watching for something more serious.  The news outlets are performing a valuable function.
• Obviously, this is very serious for those who have the illness and their families.

This is not big news

From another standpoint, at this point it’s no reason to panic.

I’ve seen news sources with higher and higher numbers.  If a newspaper says "1200 in Central Mexico being studied as possibly having the unknown illness", what does that mean?

It means 600 people got a sniffle, saw the news and panicked.  300 got a nasty cold and went to the doctor.  200 got the flu and went to the doctor.  100 got a serious flu bug, and may actually have the rare illness.  If 11,000 people in Mexico actually got the disease, that would be .01% of the population.

So no, we’re staying indoors afraid of getting the illness at this point.

So far the highest number I’ve heard is that 68 in Mexico have died.  As serious as that is (see above), and I’m sure those numbers will rise, these are still extremely small numbers compared to the millions of Mexico.

Also, research so far seems to be telling us that the virus is not as serious as it could be – in other words, it wouldn’t be a lot more serious than a normal flu bug (but more people would get it).

So, with good reason, Canada’s chief public health officer announced today that there’s absolutely no reason why Canadians should be discouraged from travelling to Mexico.  From that standpoint, this is not serious.

So in the end, Mexico and the United States need our prayers as they deal with what appears to be a new strain of the flu.  It could turn out to be more serious than it already it.  But from what we know so far, neither country is in the middle of a disaster, and life is going on as usual (but without school.  After all, we don’t get "snow days" here, we need something!)