Obama declares swine flu a national emergency

President Obama declared the swine flu a national emergency; this gives the health secretary the ability to suspend federal guidelines at hospitals. This will suspend federal guidelines at hospitals and will speed up on how infected people are treated in a disaster. This allows hospitals to increase their speed of treatment by not requiring giving as much information during a hectic time. This declaration allows the Health and Human Services to let hospitals relocate emergency rooms off the site to reduce any cross contamination and to protect any non-infected flu patients. "As a nation, we have prepared at all levels of government, and as individuals and communities, taking unprecedented steps to counter the emerging pandemic," Obama wrote in the declaration. He said the pandemic keeps evolving, the rates of illness are rising rapidly in many areas and there's a potential "to overburden health care resources." The swine flu is more widespread than first thought. Health specialist stated almost 100 children have died from H1N1, which are infected 46 states now. Since the H1N1 was first announced in the beginning of the year there has been over 5,000 deaths worldwide according to the World Health Organization. This figure is rightfully underestimated by a large number do to the fact most countries have stopped counting individual cases of this flu strand.

I as everyone else have been in fear of seeing my children or grandchildren come down with this flu. Our attention to personal hygiene was important prior but has increased since this outbreak. This story doesn’t change my thought prior, during or before my reading it. I am a bit happier that the president has stepped up and started the process of doing whatever it takes to make sure that the people that are infected get the treatment they need to hopefully conquer this medical issue and to protect those that do not have this flu.

After seeing the children on the news that fought so gallantly for their lives against this flu, and won, makes me feel better knowing they are sending out vaccinations in November and December. According to Philip Elliott of Associated Press, “The government now hopes to have about 50 million doses of swine flu vaccine out by mid-November and 150 million in December.”

The fear is not unjust, and to state that the world is Paranoid is not out of context. This could be another Black Plague, which was at its peak during 1348-1350 taking 30-60 percent of Europe’s population. The further I read this article on http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091024/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_swine_flu the more paranoid of germs I became. To compare the H1N1 to the Black Plague is something I don’t think is too farfetched. Knowing how the population as of today has dropped do to this Pandemic is not quite as dramatic as the drop in the population do to the Plague from estimated 450 million to 350 million are numbers not too far out of reach. To protect yourself against such things as the flu, or virus’s people need to learn to keep their hands washed, cover your mouth when you sneeze or cough. These are items that I have for years hated to see people do in public or at work, if you have to cough or sneeze, please oh please cover your mouth I don’t want whatever you have. If you can stay at home when you’re this sick, this is one of the few times when Mom said, “Share honey!” she didn’t mean your germs.