Come swine with me

Released 15/05/2009

Matthew Jane considers the impact of swine flu

I admit it, a few weeks ago I would have half expected to be sat here writing this in a sealed off enclosure, like a scene from 28 Days Later, the pitter patter of my keyboard interrupted occasionally by the sounds of zombies roaming the streets outside, burnt out cars and sirens blazing as society as we know it crumbled and fell.

Suffice to say the swine flu outbreak has not been as catastrophic as initial reports would have led to suggest, aside from a few schools who were forced to close. Fortunately, most of us are still carrying on as normal and daily activities have been largely unaffected.

Whether this is due to good warnings, extra vigilance on behalf of schools, or simply the gods smiling down on us, nobody will really know.

The initial hysteria reminded of the panic surrounding the so-called ‘millennium bug'. Who remembers that? On the turn of the year 2000 those who believed that papers and listened to the government reports were expecting planes to fall from the sky, computers to self destruct and for every living being to spontaneously implode. Fortunately, nine years later, this hasn't happened.

Whether the millennium bug was prevented as a result of the millions of government funds that were ploughed into it's prevention or whether it was simply a zeitgeist that failed to materialise, again is anyone guess.

With experts predicting a more serious outburst by the end of the year, the swine flu panic will not have been a waste of time. Without wanting to appear like a herald of doom, consider this outburst a dress rehearsal for a potential bigger problem later down the line.

There is no doubt this could have been a serious problem. Whether swine flu erupts again in the future, only time will tell. At least we will all be prepared if it does.

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