Flu danger persists

CHICAGO — Did government health officials "cry swine” when they sounded the alarm on what looked like a threatening new flu?

The so-far mild swine flu outbreak has many people saying all the talk about a devastating global epidemic was just fear-mongering hype.

But that’s not how public health officials see it, calling complacency the thing that keeps them up at night.

Schools shut down, idling even healthy kids and forcing parents to stay home from work; colleges scaled back or even canceled graduation ceremonies; a big Cinco de Mayo celebration in Chicago was canned; face masks and hand sanitizers sold out — all because of an outbreak that seems no worse than a mild flu season.

"I don’t know anyone who has it. I haven’t met anyone who knows anyone who contracted it,” said Carl Shepherd, a suburban Chicago video producer and father of two. "It’s really frightening more people than it should have. It’s like crying wolf.”

Miranda Smith, whose graduation ceremony at Cisco Junior College in central Texas was canceled to avoid spreading the flu, blames the media.

"It’s been totally overblown,” she said Thursday.

"Everyone seems to know it’s not going to kill you and it’s not as deadly as they think,” she said. "Everybody needs to just calm down and chill out.”


Did government overreact?
Craig Heyl of Decatur, Ga., said the government overreacted.
"Swine flu is just another strain of flu. People get the flu. I guess you have to call it a pandemic when it’s a widespread virus, but I don’t think the severity of it is all that concerning,” said Heyl, 43.

Public health authorities acknowledge their worst fears about the new virus have not materialized. But no one’s officially saying it’s time to relax. And experts worry that people will become too complacent and tune out the warnings if the virus returns in a more dangerous form in the fall.

Peter Sandman, a risk communication specialist, says on his Web site that reminding people the risk is real and warning them in the future if a pandemic looks imminent "will be extremely difficult.”

"Swine flu looks to be an extremely mild pandemic if it goes pandemic at all, despite WHO warnings that it may ‘come back with a vengeance’ in the fall. People are going to be very, very skeptical,” Sandman wrote.

Dr. Robert Daum, a University of Chicago infectious disease expert, says authorities acted properly when news first broke about the new flu strain.

"It’s like overcalling a snowstorm .... You want the plows out even if it’s only going to snow a flake,” Daum said. If not, and a blizzard hits, "there will be an outcry like you’ve never seen before.”