With every new death, illness, or possible illness from swine flu, the hysteria increases. Swine flu hasn't become a major pandemic, but the hype certainly has. We need to calm down and employ the Internet to put swine flu in perspective. We need to use Internet tools -- graphics, mainstream news articles, blogs, Twitter, and social networking sites -- to inject rationality into discussions.
ThinkerNet blogger Jart Armin and Editor-in-Chief Terry Sweeney have ably discussed some of this irrationality. Sweeney reviews the hysteria and useless information. Armin examines swine flu spammers who could infect your computer with a "real" (albeit electronic) virus to steal information or exhort you to pay for non-existent products.
However, knowing there's a problem is only the first step. The next step is employing the Internet to do something about it, which I haven't seen discussed.
Firstly, Internet articles using "pandemic" need to ensure that readers know what that really means. It doesn't mean everyone dies or even the majority of people die. It means that a disease spreads across a wide geographic area. By that definition, the common cold is a pandemic. Therefore, articles need to define the term, either in the text or with a link to a glossary.
Secondly, readers must understand the history of pandemic scares that have been far less terrible than the hype anticipated. Remember SARS? I'm not downplaying the potential seriousness of such diseases, but rather the idea that every potential pandemic wreaks tremendous havoc. Again, the Internet's linking capabilities might come into play to provide supplementary information to calm the hysteria.
Thirdly, I'd make sure to include data in maps and charts that puts the swine flu in perspective. For decades, 37,000 to 41,000 people have died every year from automobile accidents -- and that's just in the United States. More than 650,000 people die from heart disease, and more than 550,000 people die from cancer annually in the U.S. On average, 36,000 Americans die each year from "seasonal" flu and its complications, with 250,000 to 500,000 dying annually worldwide.
So when I see fancy Internet maps and charts detailing swine flu illness and deaths, I also want to see -- on the same Web page -- deaths from heart disease, cancer, automobile accidents, etc., that correlate to the regions with swine flu. I'd also like to see those Web pages include deaths and illnesses from pollution; for instance, it's been estimated that 656,000 Chinese die annually from air pollution.
On April 28, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency because of swine flu, which may have caused one death in the state. In contrast, in 2008, California recorded 3,451 traffic deaths. But that's a drop in the bucket compared to perhaps 24,000 Californians dying annually of air pollution.
As a result, I call upon corporate Websites, bloggers, and Twitterers to support my own modest proposal: Gov. Schwarzenegger must immediately declare a state of emergency that bans every vehicle and shutters all industries emitting pollutants until California can halt the tens of thousands of deaths from the pollution pandemic. We cannot allow this pandemic to kill Californians or cause them to lose their sense of smell!
To be very clear: I'm not minimizing the horrors of a swine flu pandemic that sickens and kills huge numbers of people -- if it actually occurs. Even a single death is sad. But the Internet has been used to mercilessly hype this disease, and it's time to use this marvelous global network to undo the incorrect and misleading information.
— Alan Reiter, President, Wireless Internet & Mobile Computing
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