"Good point. Medical care has advanced a lot. I wonder how many cases went into bacterial infections? There are complications of illnesses that can be dealt with now. That would help."
I'm not sure what to make of this. This kind of fear makes people lose it, even here on FR.
There was a thread on FR from about a year ago, when the CDC was predicting a really bad year for the latest flu virus, with lots of people dying. Some people on FR were saying that anyone who wasn't willing to get a flu vaccination should be put in an interment camp -- even though the flu shot they were offering was from the previous year, it wasn't even for the nasty flu strain they were expecting.
Of course last year's flu wasn't a big problem, so the CDC projections were wrong. They were also wrong about how big a deal SARS would be in the US.
Not sure what to think about them; they seem like they have cried wolf alot over stuff. Maybe they are right this time, who knows.
Seems like every year we get dire warnings about the possibility of a virulent flu outbreak; how it's just around the corner. When it happens we'll know about it. I just don't quite understand why the CDC, for example, issues these alarmist sounding pronouncements and scares people. I'll worry when it starts to happen. At that point, I'd probably put myself under quarantine. I have enough of what I need that I don't need to shop for a long time. I like to stock up before winter sets in because hauling groceries through the snow and slop at 10 degrees is not my idea of fun. I just hope that they have not cried wolf so much that when it happens for real, people blow it off until it's too late.