Swine flu boogaloo and the H1N1 shuffle.

So...I can’t believe we actually know who Patient Zero is. I almost could say I’m not beyond the here-and-now and not overly worried (yet a little caution is always wise) about H1N1, but this has presented itself as a fucking fabulous example of how quickly information can travel. Especially considering the fact I can track the exact numbers of people with confirmed cases of swine flu all over the damned world, and that we know who little Edgar is (the youngling listed as the possible source of this strain). Regardless of the issues inherent in statistics - and especially in the focus on one terribly neotonous child - it’s mind-boggling to me. There’s been much noise about how the internet has made this scenario more than it is; that “back in the day” (LOVE that phrase) we wouldn’t have cared as we wouldn’t have known. "Back in the day" we may not have even known that influenza existed. It is a reasonably recent discovery. This hearkens back to what is becoming the apocryphal 1918 Spanish flu comparison, when they really had no fucking clue what was happening and were racing against time (and a phenomenal number of deaths amongst healthcare workers/researchers) to discover a vaccine...once they even figured out that was an option. My point being: how amazing that we can track disease so thoroughly as to seemingly annihilate it before it gets a foothold. “Seemingly” being used because that isn’t how the flu works. But hey, maybe it isn’t highly contagious, maybe it won’t jump and maybe we won’t all be unhappy for one-three random miserable weeks sometime this year.