posted on Aug, 22 2009 @ 11:06 PM
I have a couple of concerns regarding this alleged flu outbreak in the Southern US.
The first is that late August is not a usual time to be seeing a flu outbreak, and I'd think that it would be more likely in the Northern US than in
the south due to the normal flu's spread during cooler times of the year. We usually get back to school earlier and out of school earlier down here
than in other parts of the US. So much is atypical about this flu that it bears watching closely. Summer in this part of the world is known to hang on
well into what most people call Autumn and the normal flu season here doesn't really get going until late October at the earliest and usually
November or December is when it really fires up. Though I know that bugs getting going as soon as school is back is typical, I can't remember a flu
outbreak ever this time of year.
The specifics of this novel H1N1 (i still prefer Mexican-Swine flu) strain have been hotly and thoroughly debated in this forum since the first
instances this past spring, and I'm not going to go there.
The flu's impact on the Southern Hemisphere is either severely under reported or not really that much worse than the regular annual flu. I believe
that this may be because the Southern Hemisphere is much less populated than the Northern Hemisphere. I can only think of Melbourne, Sydney, Buenos
Ares, and Johanesbug as large metroplitan cities in temperate climates that could compare to some of the large cities in the Northern Hemisphere.
Also the southern Hemisphere lacks a land conduit to the southern polar regions like exists in the northern hemisphere so the winters aren't quite as
bad.
I do have a rather disturbing theory that's not quite as disturbing as some of the others I've seen on here in regards to why the hype about the
flu. I don't buy the imminent recovery meme in regards to the world economy particular the US economy. Just as the markets are shooting the moon, and
if you watch (not read) your economic news you just might believe that, if some sort of quarantine/travel ban is put in place to quell a flu outbreak
then there is a perfect non-aligned natural force to scapegoat for the malfaesence that truly caused the further economic collapse that IS coming any
week now. The hype is also beneficial to those in the middle of a hotly contested US healthcare debate.