Good evening, Netizens...

David Horsey's cartoon pretty much has Swine Flu Virus pegged.

Unless one has actually caught Swine Flu, you never really have respect for it. It's just like the flu, you feel like a Mac truck just rolled over you on the concrete sidewalk, you have a low-grade fever, you have a cough like a pack-a-day smoker and simply want a place to hide. Of course, some people who caught the Swine Flu died, but fortunately the percentages are low.

But it is infectious, having migrated to nearly every country in the world, and it is spreading fairly rapidly.

So what is a pandemic?

It must meet three criteria:

It must be the emergence of a disease new to a population, and;

The agent infects humans causing serious illness, and ;

The agent must spread easily and quickly among humans.

You might think from the manner in which the word pandemic is bandied around it is much worse than it actually is. At least for now.

Dave

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