As if people were not already aware, Vice President Joe Biden is a complete idiot:
Vice president Joe Biden said today he would tell his family members not to use subways in the U.S. and implied schools should be shuttered as the swine flu outbreak spread to 11 states and forced school closures amid confirmation of the first U.S. death.
“I wouldn’t go anywhere in confined places now,” Biden said when asked whether he would advise family members to use public transportation.
Biden made his comments during a brief interview on NBC’s “Today” show during an interview with Matt Lauer.
“I would tell members of my family, and I have, I wouldn’t go anywhere in confined places now. It’s not that it’s going to Mexico, it’s you’re in a confined aircraft when one person sneezes it goes all the way through the aircraft. That’s me. I would not be, at this point, if they had another way of transportation suggesting they ride the subway. ”
The vice president also implied that schools should be closed as the threat of swine flu increases.
“If you’re out in the middle of a field and someone sneezes that’s one thing. If you’re in a closed aircraft or a closed container or closed car or closed classroom it’s a different thing.”
Have no doubt – this “swine flu” outbreak could be a serious problem, just like every flu outbreak could be a serious problem. But the fact is that our current medical facilities and treatments are better than they ever were, and in developed countries fatalities from this new bug will probably be pretty minimal. Will they happen? Sure. Will they be epidemic/pandemic/civilization-destroying in nature? Probably not. LabRat has a pretty good run-down of why this entire situation is not nearly as bad as some people would have you believe it is, but one of the major take-aways from that post is that we are not even sure if the fatalities related to the “swine flu” are actually because of the swine flu. Sure, the flu weakened people, but was it the flu itself that killed them, or was it some other opportunistic bug that capitalized on a damaged immune system? If the former, we might have a problem, but if the latter, this is hardly anything new.
So here we are, with something that might be a problem, but is hardly at that point yet (and is emminently treatable, even if it has gone beyond the “containable” phase), and the media is making a frakking circus out of it. People are getting anxious, scares are developing all over the country, and the news stations across the continent are trying to whip all of this up into some kind of hysterical frenzy. And what does our esteemed Vice President do?
He adds to the panic.
Based on the implications and outright statements from his words, we should suspend all air travel, all vehicular travel, all mass transit, all schools, all businesses (after all, my office and office building are “confined spaces”)… really all human interaction whatsoever. All because… ohmygod… there are sick people out there!
I am not sure whether I should categorize that opinion as “elitist”, “ignorant”, or just some whacky-assed combination of both.
Oh, and while we are talking whacky, what is with the Vice President of the supposedly “greenest” administration in history telling people to avoid public transportation? Bit of a “whoops” on that one, eh?
As I said, this could be a problem, especially given that the H1N1 virus is brand-spanking new, and none of us have a resistance to it yet. However, studies are showing that it is also treatable by the standard anti-flu drugs, Tamiflu and Relenza, and obviously if people head over to their local hospitals once they start showing symptoms, the risk of fatility reduces to effectievly nil. But promising/planning/threatening to pretty much shut down the system over something that has hardly even reared its head yet? Yeah, that takes a special kind of stupid.
Oh, and if you want a nearly-real-time track of where potential and confirmed cases of the “swine flu” are being reported, here you go:
View H1N1 Swine Flu in a larger map
All of my rantings aside, do take some basic, preliminary, and goes-without-saying precautions these days – wash your hands regularly, cover your sneezes and coughs, use some kind of bleach-based substance to clean off surfaces in your kitchen, etc. etc. While epidemics/pandemics are hardly new or exciting, we do have the means to control them these days.
Oh, and try not to lick a pig. Unless your idea of a pig is bacon. In which case feel free to lick it… after you cook it.
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