On Friday, President Obama declared Swine Flue, or H1N1, to be a national emergency.  Why?  Because of the “many millions” that have contracted the illness, more than one thousand have died from it.  Since we have no way of knowing exactly how many that “many millions” actually is, let’s say five million.  That means that 0.02% of the people that contract swine flu end up dying from it.  Maybe the number of swine flu cases is closer to ten million.  That would put the death rate from the disease at 0.01%.

That’s not exactly what I call a national emergency.  I believe the real pandemic is the fear created by the swine flu, and by our government’s overreaction to it.  The fear has been used it to push a “government knows best” agenda in places like New York, where legislation was in place to force health workers to receive the vaccination, or lose their jobs.  That mandate was only removed due to a lack of supply.

Side-note- President Obama assured America that there would be more than enough of the vaccinations to go around (120 million doses by mid-October), yet only about 13 million doses have come through.  So how are we supposed to believe promises by the government that our quality of care will not decrease under a public health option?

Another side-note- Since the vaccine is developed in chicken eggs, the demand for the economical protein source is bound to go up.  According to the laws of economics, the price of eggs will go up as the demand increases and the supply decreases.  Which means that many families that have already given up meat for eggs will have to go to beans and rice.

Let’s get back to that real pandemic- the fear mongering.  A nation preoccupied with a flu “emergency” is more likely to turn a blind eye to the real crises, like the war we’ll lose in Afganistan if we don’t send more troops like we did to win in Iraq, or the falling value of the dollar, or the cap and trade bill that will send energy costs skyrocketing, or the ongoing debate in congress over a $1,000,000,000,000 entitlement program, or the eminent bankruptcy of social security, or… well, you get my drift.

Now is not exactly the time to be declaring a disease with a 99.98% survival rating a national emergency.  As a country, we have bigger things to worry about.