Ten percent of the incoming Coast Guard Academy class has H1N1:
“We were expecting to see the number go up before it came back down because we had a lot of tests out still,” Petty Officer Ryan Doss, an academy spokesman, said Monday. “The flipside is that the number of people coming into the clinic feeling symptomatic has gone down. We hope it’s an indication that this is going to keep declining, but we’re going to stay prepared for anything.”
There is a decent amount of people out there with the opinion that “It’s just the flu”. They are right, it is just the flu this time. However, the procedures we put in place for the flu now will likely be the same used in an inevitable future outbreaks of a more virulent pathogen. To venture dangerously into a sports metaphor: H1N1 is simply the exhibition game before the start of the real thing. We get it right now so we know what to do when it the disease is far more serious.
Hat Tip: Matt Berger.
Christopher R. Albon is a political science Ph.D. specializing in armed conflict, public health, human security, and health diplomacy.
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