Pro Liberi

I’m no doctor. I thought I would say that before I start just to put a stake in the ground.   So, I’m no doctor but I’m starting to get concerned about this outbreak of Swine Flu.

Normally, every year we have an outbreak of some form of flu.   Bird flu usually and it kills a few vulnerable people around the world, causes a bit of a panic with health warning and predictions of global catastrophe. The newspapers, always the ones to start a panic, ask is this the one that will bring one of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse and bring mankind to its knees and back to the stone age.

Usually the answer is ‘No’.   It usually just provides a month or two of misery and death for a few people and then peters out.    Personally, I still see Swine Flu being exactly the same.   We read now about how many people have it and are given advice on how to combat it but it doesn’t seem to be behaving as a doomsday virus.  It isn’t multiplying exponentially as the virus does on on the best sci-Fi films where it’s 20 infected one day, 200 the next, 4,000 the next and so on.  It doesn’t even seem to be particularly lethal.  The young and the old always succumb to disease much easier than healthy adults.   It’s unfortunate but true.    So what we need to do is stock upon what we can to improve our immune systems, Flu is best handled by Vitamin D tablet or getting out into the sun I understand and avoid people as much as possible and make sure when we interact with others we do it hygienically.    Wash your hands after touching others or what others touch is usually a good start.  Don’t touch your eyes, nose, ears or mouth without washing your hands and take care when you cough.  Cough into your elbow rather than your hands or coughing uncovered.   Basic common sense precautions and, remember the 7 Ps, Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance, teach your kids how to handle themselves, ensure they get a bit of sun and they have wipes with them at all times and minimise contact with others until it is under control.

Even though I suspect it is still overkill to minimise contact with others, clean your hands every 30 seconds and treat everyone as a potential threat but it can’t hurt and if it does start to spread nationwide then you have a head start.

So although I don’t see this as any different from previous outbreaks despite it being declared a pandemic by WHO for most of us one thing does make me concerned.  I’m concerned because our government has decided that there is a risk and has ordered enough of the vaccine for the entire population.   Sounds good.

Only problems are that it has not been tested yet and this untested vaccine is not expected to start to be available until the end of August with delivery for half the population by the end of the year with the rest next year.  Now if this is a pandemic and of even a fraction of the scenarios generated in the films then we are screwed.  Only the government and others chosen by them will get the vaccine in time.  Typical.

Now one other area of concern.   I’ve heard talk that they are talking about mandatory vaccinations for the UK population.   That does worry me for one, vaccines themselves tend to kill people, think of the hassle over the MMR vaccinations, and that is a tried and test vaccine that has been around a while now.   In addition by the time we have enough vaccine the pandemic will be over one way or another, we will all be dead, immune or the pandemic will have burnt itself out.

Either way I will watch as a politician is given it, to show it is safe, and will avoid it as much as possible until I’m forced to at gunpoint or I feel easier about it.

It does make me suspicious though that a fascist government that wants total control over its subjects wants to give every single one of them injections over a virus that has a very low mortality rate with healthy people and the outbreak will likely be over anyway.   Where is my tin hat?  I’d better get it on.