Panic! But don’t over-panic!

Ready for your swine flu shot?

Recently, Keiji Fukuda, the acting assistant director- general of the World Health Organization made it official: The swine flu is now a pandemic.

Apparently a pandemic isn’t a pandemic until WHO says it is, so until the announcement, every time you heard the word “pandemic” applied to this flu, all of that was just garden-variety sensationalism. Which was pretty obvious.

Before making the pandemic announcement, Dr. Fukuda told Reuters: “We do not want people to ‘over-panic’ if they hear that we are in a pandemic situation.”

Panic? That’s just fine. Go ahead and panic. Just don’t OVER-panic.

And while you’re panicking, roll up your sleeve, because someone wants to give you a flu shot.

In about the time it takes to make a cupcake in an Easy- Bake Oven, representatives for drug giant Novartis AG responded to the WHO announcement with their own announcement: They’ve already prepared a vaccine.

And not only that, The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has already placed a $289 million order for Novartis swine flu vaccines.

Okay…NOW can I over-panic?

Source:
“First Batch of Swine Flu Vaccine Already Here: Company” Steven Reinberg, HealthDay News, 6/12/09, healthday.com