by Gary Betts

Created on: October 26, 2009   Last Updated: July 18, 2011

All Americans and people around the world should be very worried about the Swine Flu Pandemic (H1N1). I'm afraid that this pandemic will kill tens of millions of people around the world and up to 90,000 in the United States alone. The seasonal flu kills about 36,000 annually in the U.S.

We are now in the second wave of this pandemic. The first wave was pretty mild. This reminds me of the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic which killed 50 million people world wide. That pandemic also had a mild first wave, which was followed by a killer second wave. I think history may be repeating itself with the Swine Flu Pandemic.

A key U.S. government report has given Americans a very real reason to worry. The President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology released a report dated August 7, 2009 stating that up to 50% of the U.S. population will get the Swine Flu. Of that, up to 1.8 million will be hospitalized and a staggering 90,000 will die. Still not worried?

The real problem will be getting enough of the Swine Flu vaccines to protect everyone in the Northern Hemisphere. But that won't happen. Even the United States is having trouble getting the vaccines out to the American population. But the real problem lies in countries less developed than the U.S., such as those in north Africa and eastern Europe. But Asia will be the biggest problem with China probably taking the biggest hit. There will be no way that China will be able to get vaccines to most of its 1.3 billion population.

If you compare the United States to the rest of the world, the world death total will be the worst tragedy since the 1918 Spanish Flu. With a U.S. government report predicting up to 90,000 American deaths, that works out to about 0.03% of the U.S. population. But less developed countries around the world will suffer more. Let's say, to be on the conservative side, that 1% of the world's total population of over 6 billion people will die. That works out to a mind-numbing 60 million people dying world wide.

The Swine Flu has demonstrated its ability to circle the globe in a very short time. It also is very easily passed from one person to another, making crowded places such as malls and schools a hot-bed of Swine Flu activity. The Swine Flu death total could surpass that of the 1918 Spanish Flu. If you are not worried about the deadly threat that the Swine Flu poses, you are a fool. And it may cost you your life.

www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/PCAST_H1N1_Repor t.pdf (see page viii of this report)

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