Feels good to be coming around to the fact that by jove, I ARE SMRTE PNTS!!

I'M IN UR HAUS OF LURNING
PASSING UR EXAMS

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I'M IN UR HAUS OF LURNING ACEING UR EXAMS

That's not actually true, since the swine flu was never as virulent as all the panicked reactions suggested. They were following the recommended precautions, but those precautions were not actually sensible.

Umm no. If the SF had been as virulent as the information the CDC had suggested it would have been the right recommendation to make. Part of risk evaluation is making decision on the information you have including cost/risk ratio of waiting for more information before making a decision. It is like evacuating building in response to a bomb threat. The lost work is expensive, the evacuation is annoying and the odds are that the threat is a prank. But the risk benefit is still in favor of evacuation. It does not retrospectively become panic when (as was probably always the case) it turns out to be prank.

What that says to me is that the CDC overreacted. I expect the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to not overreact.

See, I don't think they did. The way to shut down an epidemic is to close it off into pockets and then let those pockets burn themselves out. To do this when the pockets are small enough to be contained you often have to make a call before all the information is in.

Also, this country has a history of ignoring the fuck out of the CDC. Just look at AIDS to see that. The CDC had recommendations about shutting down bathhouses in San Francisco and trying to get the outbreak under control. If those had been heeded early on, far before more information was in, before they even found the virus that causes AIDS, then it could have had a serious impact on the overall scope of the AIDS pandemic. Yes, I am still seething with rage over the fact that communities did now follow the recommendations of the CDC when it comes to that.

I am still seething with rage over the fact that communities did now follow the recommendations of the CDC when it comes to that.

My rage is also for the Red Cross and the blood banks for refusing to use the early tests.

My rage is also for the Red Cross and the blood banks for refusing to use the early tests.

Which was, once again, part of the CDC recommendation and was ignored.

If the SF had been as virulent as the information the CDC had suggested

Look, I understand that my opinion is not the prevailing one. And that opinion is: I believe that, looking at the data they had, the CDC overreacted. The CDC isn't infallible. Everything they say/recommend isn't automatically correct simply by virtue of the fact that they said it.

Many, many people think that erring largely on the side of caution was necessary. That's cool. They can believe that, just as I can believe that it wasn't necessary.

The initial mortality rate figures coming out of Mexico were very, very scary. A mortality rate of 1 or 2 percent would be horrible.

That's the thing, .001% of a large population is still an awfully large number.

I'm incredibly relieved that the graduating class of Regent university seems to not be running the CDC right now, AIF...well, maybe not great, but at least it's still run by doctors and stuff. Given "Brownie", I can't take that for granted like I used to.