‘In 1918, half a million Americans died. The projections are that this time, the virus will kill one million Americans.’ These were the words of the President’s chief health adviser, as he warned about the dangers of swine flu. But he wasn’t speaking this week. The year was 1976, the President was Ford, and the adviser had, it transpired, overestimated the death toll by 999,999.
Swine flu has already proved more lethal this time round. There are 152 probable deaths in Mexico (though only 20 cases are confirmed) and 1,614 sufferers under observation there. At the time of writing two British cases have been confirmed, with another 14 being investigated. But the lessons of 1976 are just as relevant today. In the words of the late Douglas Adams: don’t panic. It’s not yet a pandemic and we’re well prepared.
The only proper pandemic so far has been a panic pandemic, and the causes of this are not hard to identify. Rolling news needs rolling stories, so news of the flu spreads with viral speed and mutates into fodder for 24-hour channels: that killer disease in full, a sufferer’s story, lists of symptoms and worst-case scenarios. With every new headline, the projected death toll creeps up — not because the virus has claimed more lives, but because bigger numbers make better stories.
There are some reassuring things to be said about this particular outbreak: no one has yet died of the virus outside Mexico; swine flu has in the past infected people in the US without causing a pandemic. The experience of another first-world country with an advanced health system is clearly more instructive for Britain. But this goes largely unreported. There’s also been lazy talk that we’re ‘due’ another flu pandemic — as if it’s cyclical or something we deserve.
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