‘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. This is effectively meaningless. To say we’re due another Spanish flu (which killed roughly 50 million) is alarmist and irresponsible. In 1918, conditions along the Western Front were ideal for a virus. Men were packed together in barracks, their immune systems already weakened, and antibiotics — which could cure the secondary infections like pneumonia — had yet to be invented.
But it’s not just journalists to blame for pandemic panic; politicians and health officials are culpable too. The public, already spooked by the apocalyptic rhetoric surrounding the recession, look to their leaders for reassurance. Too often, they find fuel for their fears. Gordon Brown talked on Tuesday of the need for ‘urgent action’; Professor Neil Ferguson, a member of the World Health Organisation (WHO) task force said four in 10 people could be infected if the country is hit by a pandemic. It’s tempting for politicians to exaggerate a threat so as to cover themselves in case of a disaster, but it’s also cowardly and counterproductive. These sort of statements are guaranteed to send queues of frightened snufflers to the already overloaded NHS, when the best and only protection against the virus is to follow your mother’s advice: wash your hands and use a handkerchief.
It’s also irresponsible, and particularly damaging in the depths of a financial crisis, to scare people into staying at home. Though she later toned down her warning, on Monday the EU Health Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou advised against non-essential travel to affected areas. So of course shares in British Airways fell by 7.4 per cent; Thomas Cook by 4.3 per cent. Though in favour of reasonable precautions, on the subject of swine flu we stand shoulder to shoulder with President Obama, who has learnt from Ford’s mistake and announced that the outbreak is cause for concern, but not alarm. Just so.
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