Crying wolf

E

ver since I can remember every year or so the media and the authorities have gone into alarm mode over some fell disease that has the potential to decimate (literally kill one tenth) of the population.

But in my time this has never happened.

We do have a folk memory, I suppose, of the 1918 flu epidemic and it is almost certain that something like this will happen again.

But now?


Who knows?

The authorities will run (are running) around in circles, the media will (are going) go into hype mode and what will be, will be.

The trouble is of course we've heard it all before and I have become cynical and complacent over over-hyped disease threats, as well as a little fatalistic perhaps.

And I bet I'm not alone in this.

Perhaps this is what is behind the complacency that MacDoctor perceives in the response to this latest threat.