"Yet catastrophe never came, and the total U.S. death toll from H1N1 — about 13,000 people over the past year — was considerably smaller than the 36,000 people who are estimated to die each year from the regular, seasonal flu. Millions of doses of H1N1 vaccine expired unused on doctors' shelves, and health officials are now under fire for over-hyping what seemed like a harmless bug. So, was H1N1 much ado about nothing?"Bias alert: This is a TIME Ezine article, so there's no specific mention of HHS sect'y "Kitty-Kat" Sebilius or the Obama administration's culpability in contributing to the hysteria over this non-event, and the political theatrics of "never let a good crisis go to waste," although anonymous, indistinct "health officials are now under fire."
One death is one too many, but the death tolls do tell the tale: the Swine Flu killed a little more than one third of the total claimed every year by the regular, seasonal flu. Yet, WHO and the Obama administration never did seem to care too much about those poor souls.
It seems the death toll from the regular, seasonal flu is a crisis that can be wasted. Just like all the unused Swine Flu vaccines, tax dollars, media hype and public trust in 'experts.'
This TIME magazine Ezine article tries to put a smiley face on this trainwreck of disaster preparedness with declarations that the swine flu was actually more severe than the death tolls indicate, and that all this was a teachable moment for future epidemics, but by the end of the article, all one is left with is a foul odor of CYA, and the unnerving certainty about the people who claim to be the smartest people in the room, often aren't.
