10:23am Wednesday 8th July 2009
THE priority for government policy on swine flu, as on so much else, is to maintain public confidence and satisfy us that something is being done. That is precisely why it should fail to inspire confidence.
The idea that what matters is to avoid causing panic or alarm was the guiding principle upon which the defence of Singapore was managed.
The NHS website dodges the possibility of the virus being passed on before the carrier is showing symptoms. Now we are moving on from the containment phase to the treatment phase.
That sounds as though a great success has been achieved.
Wouldn’t “falling back”, “abandoning” or “giving up”
have been more appropriate terminology?
The underlying message is that effective measures to stop the virus reaching the very vulnerable would be far too much trouble, and should perhaps be seen as unnatural.
But having a population dense and mobile enough to cause such rapid spread is itself unnatural and calls for a radical response.
Even if the forecast for global fatalities were a hundred or a thousand times greater, I see no indication that those in authority would take this to warrant any serious disruption of commerce or of our “normal” lives.
John Riseley, Harrogate, North Yorkshire.
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