The swine flu panic will turn into a national sickie

First, the good news. And we all need good news. According to the Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, the UK is no longer at a ‘critical’ level of threat from a terrorist attack. We’ve been downgraded to a ‘substantial’ level of alert against al-Qa’eda or other extremist groups. So we’ve gone from a ‘touch-and-go’, worst-case scenario to a merely ‘significant’ one. However, the bad news is that ‘the Fear’ has been replaced by the Big Bogey Man himself — Mr Piggy.

Swine flu allegedly now poses a cataclysmic and ‘far greater’ immediate threat to our country’s heath and safety than anything else, and so far the government has spent over £100 million stockpiling Tamiflu. At the time of writing, 30 Brits have died as a direct result of the outbreak since 14 June (according to the Department of Health, there are 12,000 deaths per annum from ‘normal’ seasonal flu in this country).