Forever Young

Around the world, yesterday around 2,700 people died from malaria. Around ten people died from swine flu.

The last major flu pandemic, in 1968, killed around a million people. Malaria kills a million people each, and every year.

Even after a successful flu vaccines, and treatments, over a thousand people die from ordinary flu every year. One little boy died from swine flu in the U.S.

Outside Mexico a number of people are believed to have caught swine flu, in New Zealand, the US, Canada and Spain. They can be treated. All, except for one, appear to have recovered or be recovering.

It’s true that swine flu is highly infectious and that there’s currently no vaccine. But, when you take away the hype, you’ve got a handful of deaths in one country, and a rare death of a little boy in this country from a variant of flu that’s neither untreatable nor deadlier than the average flu.

Can we honestly chill?