Much ado about swine flu
Swine flu is a pandemic of hysteria?!AIF.RU
He started his march from Mexico.
Panic gripped the world, especially after the statements of the governments of almost all countries.
The result of an emergency meeting of the World Health Organization was a statement that the outbreak of a new virus has "pandemic potential", that is, threatens the whole world. There is a state of emergency in the USA. Vladimir Putin created a special commission, Gennady Onishchenko urged to refrain from traveling to Mexico. China refused to import pork and ... yes, what has not been done all over the world to prevent the spread of swine flu!
Russian bloggers responded with jokes and gibes. "Well, comrades, are we seeing another TV epidemic? First atypical pneumonia, then avian flu, and now the next pig will probably be cockroach flu. 20 people have died, and the remaining 6 billion are raising panic. Yes, cars knock down many times more people a day, but for some reason there is no such hype on TV. A lot of people die from the usual flu in Russia, but I also don't notice panic," said Texhik from Livinternet.
Either the memories of the bird flu epidemic are still fresh, or we don't care about anything at all. Although, according to official information, it is young people who suffer from the new virus, and not children and the elderly, the youth were exhausted as best they could. Maybe in vain? "It's a miracle how carefree our youth are. When four sailors were infected with syphilis from the natives and died, the captain also said – no big deal, when a small percentage of those who visited central Africa brought AIDS to Europe, no one was particularly sick either. They don't joke with viruses, young man, you have to be afraid of them, get vaccinated, and you say cockroaches have the flu," an anonymous person protested in the comments. So what? "I want to go to Mexico immediately," Elya Jikirba picked up the sensible thought of her friend. And after all, it will fly and fly.
It is curious: if all the media reacted to the threat of a pandemic with numerous articles, analysis of the situation, forecasts, and an increasing number of victims (from dozens to hundreds), then in Runet rare people tried to inject a serious stream into the carefree mood of all the inhabitants of the virtual space. They remembered and were surprised that the formidable Spaniard of the beginning of the last century was the flu: the situation is quite banal – a new strain of H1N1 has appeared, the disease of which passes with an overly pronounced intoxication syndrome, respectively, there is no immunity to it in the global human population yet. The Spanish flu, which killed about 100 million people in 1918-1919, was also H1N1 and proceeded with very severe intoxication.
None of the bloggers doubted that this was another "shnyaga". Well, this is on the conscience of specialists, although who now believes it is specialists from medicine? Another phenomenon is curious: the rapid spread of planetary hysteria. If someone believes that this is just a provoked action of "secret forces", then I will remind you of the textbook case when on October 30, 1938 ... detachments of Martians landed in the USA. Moreover, the residents of the east coast "saw" the Martians who landed from heaven. Especially since the voice of F. sounded on the air . Roosevelt, who urged the nation to save who can. And how did the Americans respond?
"In New Jersey, women rushed to the cathedral and said that there was no "trace" of New York from the Martian attacks. In Newark, residents fled with their belongings from as many as two blocks of the city. In Harlem, negroes rushed to escape from their apartments and ran north… In Chicago, the public fled from the restaurant without finishing the meal. In Salt Lake City, residents were preparing to flee their apartments with their belongings."In a word, thousands (!) Americans were saved as best they could, priests did not know how to calm the crowds in cathedrals, who prostrated themselves in front of icons and prayed for salvation, the police could not stop the streams of cars packed with household goods, tearful women and children.
And only after the statement of the US government the next day, that the Columbia radio station yesterday presented a radio play, a dramatization of the famous novel by Herbert Wales "The War of the Worlds", which was made by his young namesake on a regular radio, the audience began to calm down, and at the same time to marvel at the power of "mass psychosis".
Of course, Runet bloggers turned their attention to the $200 million that the World Bank immediately allocated to Mexico for the development of a vaccine; to the noticeable drop in the dollar and euro on Monday in Tokyo against the yen; to the immediate reaction of large trading companies, to the drop in demand for meat from Mexico and neighboring territories – in short, to everything the economic benefits of the "swine flu", however, I would not blame everything on the economic and financial "machinations" of incomprehensible forces.
There is nothing supernatural in what doctors report about the nature of the virus and the symptoms of swine flu. Also, probably, there was nothing supernatural in the entertainment radio drama based on the novel by G. Wales. But the willingness to support almost any information with mass psychosis and panic is amazing. It seems that even without any "world conspiracies" and "secret forces" we are able to bring ourselves to exhaustion. And bloggers are no exception at all. The fact that the hysteria of swine flu has not covered the virtual space does not mean that from time to time the blogosphere does not rage for some reason.
We often curse the Russian media, the government, and what else and whom else we do not curse for the "epidemic" of illiteracy, stupidity, ridiculous discoveries and speculation of scammers on our own ignorance. And as for medicine and biotechnology, then, as they say, there are no words. Russian society has fallen catastrophically behind, and modern progress in the field of biology bypasses us again. Doctors, older scientists just throw up their hands when they read about what "affects" the consciousness of young people. Yes, at least a recent "discovery" that caused discussion on various forums: it turns out that pregnant women eat for two! Moreover, such common truths often fall into the category of "newest" discoveries, and it is on our total illiteracy and total ignorance that they flourish, and the "authors" of such "newest" methods and discoveries receive good dividends. Or, on the contrary, the reading public is informed that vaccines are poison, and therefore it is necessary to refuse vaccination on a wholesale basis. But it was precisely on this principle – increasing immunity by introducing small doses of poison – that vaccination was based! And the epidemics of plague, cholera, polio and many others were left behind.
The trouble seems to be something else: as for ignorance, Russia is no exception in the modern world. And it's not about developing countries or backward cultures. In the same Great Britain, for example, an association of doctors and experts has already been established who are trying to put at least some barrier to the ignorance of respectable Englishmen. At least somehow influence what is thrown out in the media and the Internet on behalf of medicine, the latest discoveries and the pharmaceutical industry.
But it seems that no one will cure us of the willingness to panic and succumb to mass psychoses. Especially on stupidity.
Alas, mass psychoses "for knowledge", for education is a very rare phenomenon.
Portal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru27.04.2009