Hysteria?

The hysteria is even getting to me. I came at this article with half a notion of revising my position on the H1N1 Swine flu, and probably urging all of you to stampede your way to the nearest vaccination center, shove a few hundred people aside, and demand to be immediately jabbed.

So… I did a little research. While it doesn’t seem to be human nature to let facts get in the way of “feelings”, I like to back up my all too ready opinions with at least some foundation.

We’re going nuts. The last couple of days saw hundreds of clinics open across the country to provide vaccinations. A couple of months ago, surveys indicated that a great many Canadians were less than excited about getting vaccinated for H1N1, in fact it was of great concern to health officials that interest in the shots by the general public didn’t mirror their hopes for coverage. That seems to have changed– no doubt due to the media attention, and the accidental or intended messages that health officials have been sending.

Lineups at clinics are blocks long. Security officials are coming into the lines and calling halts because there is just not enough time or in many cases enough vaccine to handle the crowd. People are travelling from one location to another in search of vaccine. Is it only a matter of time before we get violence?

There is an opinion around that health officials in many countries are seeing this as a practice for a “real” pandemic. If so, they are certainly learning a few lessons. We started the process with assurances that things were under control, that there would be vaccine for all Canadians (or Americans, or whatever). Now, about a couple of days into the vaccinations in Canada, they are suddenly revising that and saying that they will be running out very shortly. Stir us all up, and then yank out the assurances… that certainly works for maintaining calm in the citizenry.

Why “practice”? This is still the flu, and although we are getting alarmed by its strength in the younger age group, there are certainly fears in the infectious disease community of someday, somehow, a new disease emerging that is easily spread, resistant to medication, and capable of dropping us like fall leaves.

If this is a practice, it doesn’t seem to be going that well. Hopefully, that’s the value: bad practice, good performance. One Alberta mayor commented yesterday that a troop of boy scouts could have better planned the organization of the vaccination clinic in his community.

I notice in the media coverage that the lineups are often dotted with many grey heads. We have been told that this strain of Influenza is probably no more dangerous to the older population than the seasonal flu, and some authorities were even recommending a while ago that older Canadians go for only the seasonal shots. So why are they lining up by the thousands, displacing younger people for the H1N1 shots?

H1N1 is a close relative of the Spanish Flu of 1918, also dubbed H1N1 because of the arrangement of two proteins on the surface of the virus. The 1918 flu, coming at a time when medical care was, compared to today, in its infancy, killed many more people around the world than did World War I. It had a particular propensity to kill younger people, apparently due to a strong immune reaction generated by the host that caused more trouble than assistance. About one-third of the world’s population was infected, and about ten percent of those died. Fifty thousand people in Canada died, over half a million in the US. This younger victim pattern is the main area of concern with the current H1N1, and the targeting of vaccinations to the under-30 age group is appropriate—a targeting that seems to be initially off the mark.

There is no doubt that the rapid death of an apparently healthy Ontario boy has scared many. It has not been uncommon for some young people to die from seasonal flu, but in the current media frenzy, this one comes with marquee attention. We have always accepted that nursing home residents will pop off by the thousands in a flu season, but for obvious reasons, we are shocked when it happens to a youngster.

It’s not difficult to get caught up in the scare. Health officials are not public relations experts, and sometimes their main intent gets lost when in the cross-hairs of headline-hungry media. Our Nova Scotia Chief Public Health Officer inadvertently fed the flames just the other day with an innocent comment about people who “wished to get the vaccination before the weekend”. Before the weekend? Not wait until next week? Why does he think I might need it before the weekend? Is time running out? Next week might be too late? GET THE KIDS IN THE CAR!!!

As if the clinic troubles were not bad enough, we have the paranoid conspiracy theorists who are educating the public on YouTube and even in town hall presentations on the dangers of vaccinations, with warnings about everything from mysterious vaccine ingredients to plots by everyone from the drug companies to world mind-control cabals. With the initial pressure from the health community to generate interest in vaccinations (they didn’t realize that hysteria would do it for them), some of us went from fear of police holding us down and injecting us to the present realization that, hey, we might never get the vaccine anyway— they’ll run out before they get here! Our local area clinics are set for December 7 and 8!

Let’s end with a little reason. While the effect of this virus on the younger age group is a definite concern that needs to be addressed, otherwise this flu is behaving largely like most influenzas. In most areas where there have been outbreaks, we hear comments like “the effects were relatively mild” (in comparison to the “bring out your dead!” plague scenarios that we anticipated?). Numbers, while frightening to a public that apparently has never paid attention to influenza numbers before, are generally low, with the possible exception of the younger group. According to the WHO, this flu has caused the death of 5000 people around the globe to date. A normal flu year brings the death of 250,000 to 500,000 people worldwide. Obama has labeled this a “national emergency”, with 1000 Americans dead from it. A normal year in the US can approach 50,000 dead from seasonal flu. Australia has ended its winter flu season, with 185 dead from H1N1, far short of the 3000 usual influenza deaths, with vaccination just starting there at this time, as it is in many countries.

I once stood in a pre-sale lineup behind Sears in Halifax. A couple of hundred people were lined up in a ragged line about four people wide, stretching gradually across the parking lot until they were blocking traffic trying to pass through the area. After a while of that, I brazenly yelled at the whole group, “You’re blocking traffic! I want everyone to swing the line around and bring it over to the sidewalk!” They looked at me as if I was loony, so I realized it was do or die. Swinging up my arms, I yelled again, “Come on! Get moving!” The line of a couple of hundred meekly walked over to the sidewalk as instructed.

The fellow behind me said, “You must be a teacher.” Insightful of him. Insightful for me too. I realized, “Gee, these people are like sheep! You can get them to do what you want if you make them think you have some authority.” Had I more ambition, I might have started the 4th Reich right there.

“Hey! Get out and get your vaccinations! Now! Quickly!!! Hurry!!!!!!!”

It still seems to work.

3 thoughts on “Hysteria?

  1. Francis, I am in 100 percent agreement with you! It is mass hysteria! I certainly can see the need for health care professionals to vaccinate. This all originated in the US where one of the senators is the head of the only lab where this flu vaccine is made. Can you figure out quickly where all the hysteria started and why and you just look who profits. My dr said that there was exactly the same flu in 1958.
    Hazel

  2. That 1958 flu seems to have been H2N2, or Asian Flu, which killed 70,000 in the US. It’s returned a few times, last in 1968, but is apprently related as well to the H1N1 flu in 1976-77, called the Russian Flu. That was the last of a particularly related strain, which is why they are saying that no one presently under 30 is likely to have much immunity to these older strains. The strains since ’77 have been different (we have had such things as H5N1 and H7N7 (Avian or Bird Flu) but the Swine Flu is reaching farther back). This lack of possible natural immunity from exposure to the older strains is what is creating concern about the under 30 age group.

    Francis

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