So, being a typical uninterested disaffected citizen, I have no real idea whatsover if this is normal media hysteria, or if I should be buying sacks of rice and barricading myself away in my basement. It certainly sounds pretty serious.
But then again, it’s killed 60 people in Asia. That’s not very many, when you consider the size of Asia and its population. The press love a buzzword, and the Autumn’s gift to the headline-writers is “Pandemic”, but are we - the British public - actually in any danger? Googling for “avian flu” returns a host of pages, the tone of which varies from USAian Big Brother style propaganda (”You have nothing to fear. Go about your daily business. Everything is fine. We control the horizontal.” etc) to profiteering “Buy bird-flu vaccines NOW before you DIE HORRIBLY!” sites.
Add to this the fact that I’m busy and don’t really have time to do balanced research in my working day, and all I’m left to go on is whatever turns up on the front page of the Metro (”The dead parrot will kill us all!”) and the BBC news website, which usually just tells you what No.10 want you to hear.
The one thing I do know is that I don’t know. I think I’m going to go back to the basement, just in case.
–c.
One Comment
I’m waiting for the headline “John Cleese found dead : infected by dead parrot.”
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