Page 47 - Fear Unmasked Flipbook

Is THIs PANDEmIC TRUly "UNPRECEDENTED"?

any means; however, it’s hard to say that this is the
most aggressive pandemic ever when another virus
historically outshines it.

H1N1 (The Swine Flu)
The H1N1 strain of influenza was the next big thing
in the world of pandemics. It actually originated in
the United States and spread to the rest of the world.

It came onto the scene between 2009 and 2010 and
did a fine job terrifying parents, teachers, and anyone
in the “at risk” population. Fun fact, the H1N1
influenza strain is actually a distant relative of the
original Spanish Flu. Who knew? Well sadly, nobody
because the facts were not made regularly available
in news reports. From April 2009 to April 2010, the

Center for Disease Control, or CDC, estimated there
were 60.8 million cases of the swine flu, 274,304
hospitalizations, and 12,469 deaths in the United
States alone. That means that on average 34.2 people
died per day of the swine flu during this time period.
I remember friends and family members taking
this very seriously, and it was a constant topic of
conversation, but we never shut the country down
because of it. The vast majority of those who got

this new flu recovered and built up the necessary
immunities to avoid it should it ever return. What’s
both funny and kind of shocking though is that if you

47