With the grand fear of a national pandemic coursing through peoples minds and Texas’ close proximity to Mexico, it is no wonder that swine flu is receiving the majority of attention from every news source in the state of Texas. All this outrage is causing the state’s local governments to overreact and feed the ever growing monster that came from Mexico. So far there has only been one confirmed death in Texas, also the only one in the entire United States, caused by H1N1, otherwise known as swine influenza. Is this single death really causing all this madness? There have only been six confirmed cases of H1N1 in Texas, a state with 24 million plus inhabitants. To me those seem like pretty weak statistics compared to all the attention swine flu is receiving from various school districts in Texas.
Is all the fear due to the fact that swine flu is relatively uncommon in humans and people are freaking out because they are ill-informed about this strain of influenza? Possibly, however they should fear not because according to the Center for Disease Control there are a couple of different medicines that do effectively treat H1N1. More likely though, I believe that the actions taken by many different governing bodies in the state of Texas is only playing to the crowd and essentially making the situation worse. Closing multiple school districts for an “outbreak” of six cases of swine flu is a little outrageous. This is only reinforcing people’s fears because it is rare that schools close because of an illness.
All in all Texas, and the U.S., is doing more harm than good. Instead of reinforcing people’s fears they should be suppressing them with the facts. From what I have read swine flu is just a different strain of the common flu that hundreds of thousands of Americans become infected with every year, accordingly H1N1 should not be built up more than necessary.
About Me
- A Ryan
- My political ideology is that of an enterpriser. My greatest influences are my family and my love of the outdoors. I am an extremely strong advocate of the Second Amendment, which causes me great frustration sometimes. The only political experience I have was voting in the most recent Presidential election. I am taking Texas Government in order to meet degree requirements, but I hope to learn as much as possible about my local government. The main thing that I hope to obtain from this course is a working knowledge of Texas government and to gain the ability to carry on an intelligent political conversation.
1 comment:
Mr. Ryan is definitely one of the most perceptive bloggers I have met. I do think the swine flu is blown out of proportion. This is all because how the government made of the swine flu. All they did was put tremendous fear into commoners like us, people that don't read or have any facts about the swine flu are even more terrified.
When Ryan writes, "I believe that the actions taken by many different governing bodies in the state of Texas is only playing to the crowd and essentially making the situation worse." He hit right on the spot. I feel that the government uses the swine flu as a scapegoat for the economic troubles we have. Do people with higher education not agree with me? Maybe I am making it bigger than it is; I could be making the same mistake they are right now by doing this. Nonetheless, Ryan is right. I do wish Ryan elaborated on why he thinks closing multiple schools is outrageous. What is Mr. Ryan's level on comprehending what is outrageous?
Even though Mr. Ryan enforces his statements with evidence, but I am still a little uncertain when he states, "So far there has only been one confirmed death in Texas, also the only one in the entire United States." Because after listening to the radio or reading the news, a lot of which they confirm a lot more death results compared to one. One is a REALLY small number, if not the smallest. This is only one of the very few noticing encounters with this article; otherwise I only had to read it once to understand where Ryan was coming from. His flow and word choice helped me understand his article even more.
Your opinion on how government is reinforcing people's fear is very understandable. I believe the government runs with a lot of flaws, and this is definitely one of them. The way Mr. Ryan talk about the swine flu, makes me feel ever better about it due to his positive reinforcement.
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