Just Imagine...

Wonder how people react to even the possibility of a plague-like illness? Sentiments like the following exhibit how hysteria and panic begin. ...

According to David Porter at the Orlando Sentinel:

It's amazing how fast that sickness spread. Then it occurred to me: What if it was bird flu?

Bill Toth, an epidemiologist with the Orange County Health Department, assured me that more than likely most of the people with symptoms similar to mine were suffering from rhinovirus, a common cold bug. But he agreed that the ease with which the rhinovirus spread should cause everyone to think about the bird flu.

Too many people treat the bird flu as though it's theoretical. For one thing, it's not even in this country. What's more, that form of the bug can be spread only from bird to bird, or from bird to humans. It is noteworthy that half the humans who caught it died.

So far, though, it can't spread from human to human. But Toth and thousands of other scientists fear that it will mutate into a form that will make it very contagious among humans.

The repressed hysteria and panic are deafening.