One year later, swine flu hysteria is lesson learned

By Chuck Frank / chuck@theklaxon.com / 04.20.2010

Updated on: 04.20.10 at 10:55 am

A hyped-up health care scare. A government conspiracy. A vaccine nightmare. One year later, mention swine flu to any health worker and they cringe.

Swine flu allegedly killed more than 12,000 people in the U.S. and infected another 60 million Americans. The H1N1 virus was serious (and still is). But the hysteria around the illness is a lesson learned that the world isn’t ready for a pandemic.

In New York City, where a majority of the H1N1 cases bloomed, there became mass hysteria with school closings, triages and vaccine campaigns that used any available city worker as a mule to escort school children to the nurse for a shot. Not to mention the infuriated parents, the nervous elderly and the worried snifflers.

Other cities across the nation and around the globe felt similar pressure from residents as the virus mutated and continued to get worse.

There’s no question that the initiatives taken by organizations to help combat swine flu showed their ability to respond; however, if a virus 10 times as powerful were to evolve, it could mean devastation.

The Associated Press reports that the H1N1 virus will force officials to think of “lessons learned,” such as “cover your cough,” pandemic expectations, vaccination disappointments (as the nation’s system seems “flawed”) and pregnant women vulnerabilities and initiatives.

A public health emergency rests at the local level with little help from the federal government. The local officials attempted to ease concerns with the above initiatives, but we just didn’t listen. Instead, half the world went into a panic attack that causes more harm than good in a crisis.

Granted, some of the blame does fall on governmets who, at times, may have over exaggerated the virus. But cities and towns never had seen or even expected the virus and some just thought of it as a severe flu (making people more nervous). Though the latter is what it now is being called, it should be a wake-up call for governments to adapt these lessons learned and ready. A more dedicated campaign that focuses on education of the masses, while at the same time trying not to overhype the problem or to force vaccinations, is one possible route. Creating an emergency plan that incorporates the continuity of operations for all local necessities is another.

History shows that a pandemic occurs once every 100 or so years. Let’s hope officials can deal with the surge, because it would seem this time, they lucked out.

For more information on pandemics and pandemic planning, click here.