Corona Virus vs Swine Flu
There has been a lot of controversy about President Trump’s
handling of the corona virus pandemic that we are all stewing in, and President
Obama’s handling of the H1H1 swine flu pandemic in 2009-2010. Neither pandemic had an effective vaccine,
and both resulted or are resulting in substantial cases and deaths in the U.S.
and the world.
According to the CDC, H1N1, or “swine flu” came from pigs,
which are part of our conventional food supply, through reassortment of genes
in American and European pig herds. CDC also report that the-mid range estimate
of swine flu cases in the U.S. was 60.8 million, and deaths, 12,500, for a
mortality rate of 0.02%. To be noted that
even though the total cases of corona virus in the U.S. (the denominator) has
not been determined, the mortality rate is orders of magnitude higher than that
of the swine flu. It seems to be between
1 -2 %, depending on mitigating measures. As repeatedly reported in the world press, the
corona virus originated in the filthy live animal “wet markets” in Wuhan, Hubei
Province, China.
President Obama declared a “Public Health Emergency”, (not
the stronger “National Emergency”), on April 25, 2009, early in the outbreak of
H1N1. This lesser emergency order was
renewed by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sibelius on July 24 and October 1, 2009. President Obama finally issued a “National
Emergency” order on October 24, 2009, after upwards of 10,000 American had died
from H1N1. This latter is the basis for
the unfounded claims that Obama did nothing while Americans were dying form the
flu. The CDC, FDA, HHS were all actively
addressing the flu under the government’s “Public Health Emergency”
orders. One can argue how effectively.
In trying to find similar factual information about
President Trump’s and our current government’s action with respect to this Wuhan
sourced corona virus, it was nearly impossible due to the negative “hate Trump”
mainstream press, fueled by the New York Times, Washington Post, Politico and
others who were reporting their anti-administration opinions as news. Wikipedia
at least gave the dates that various things happened.
On January 31, 2020, President Trump and HHS declared a “Public
Health Emergency” like those described above during the Obama
administration. More importantly, Trump
stopped travel by non-Americans to the U.S. from China, to the screeches and
howls of RACIST!, XENOPHOBE! And worse from our ever Trump-hating
leftists. On March 13, 2020 Trump issued
a full “National Emergency Order”, substantially increasing the power of the
federal government to act in the crisis.
Travel from Europe was curtailed the same day. On March 20, travel from Canada and Mexico
was also shut down.
It is truly sad that there are elements in our congress and
in our media that are trying to take political advantage of a medical crisis
that has brought the world to its knees.
Now is the time for all Americans to come together as we did after 9/11,
rather than continuing this debilitating divisiveness being fostered primarily,
it seems, by the unhinged, hate-Trump left.
In trying to objectively review the Obama administration’s
action during the 2009 swine flu pandemic versus the Trump administration’s
handling, so far, of the corona virus pandemic, it is evident that both
administrations acted with the best interests of the American people in mind.
It took Obama a lot longer to declare a full “National Emergency”, but this is
in context of a less severe disease, and an orders of magnitude lower mortality
rate. Plus, the swine flu did not
originate in the filth of China’s live animal markets. It originated by mixing pig herds.
The references below are mainly related to how the Obama administration
handled the swine flu to 2009. The
Wikipedia article gives dates on what Trump is doing. We are all living the
Wuhan corona virus.
This is from Snopes.
“The swine flu pandemic spread quickly across the United
States starting in April 2009. There were approximately 60 million cases over
the course of the following year, which resulted in nearly 275,000
hospitalizations and more than 12,000 deaths.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has a
detailed timeline of this pandemic on its website. It shows that the CDC first
activated its Emergency Operations Center (EOC) on April 22, 2009. At the time,
there were only two confirmed cases in the United States. On April 25, 2009,
the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a public health emergency of
international concern, and the following day the Obama administration did the
same. At that time, there were about 20 confirmed cases.
Despite the CDC’s efforts, the swine flu continued to
spread. Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of health and human services, renewed the
emergency declaration on July 24, 2009, and then again on Oct. 1, 2009. On Oct.
24, 2009, Obama declared a national emergency that gave officials more
resources to fight the pandemic.”
Ray Gruszecki
March 24, 2020
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