We are now due another flu pandemic. This is nothing to do with some evil ‘Spooks’ style conspiracy but a fact of life. Every 37 years or so, the flu virus mutates or morphs into a new strain that humans haven’t suffered before. So we go down like nine pins, as we don’t have any immunities to it.
We had Asian flu in 1957 (two million dead), Hong Kong flu in 1968 (a million dead and caught us on the hop because it broke the 37 year rule), and, as we all know, the worst flu pandemic was Spanish Flu in 1918, at the end of the First World War, which claimed 40 million lives. That flu wasn’t Spanish at all – it came from America. As the pandemic took a grip, the US authorities began to call it German Flu. The theory was that Germany, with whom they had just gone to war, had developed a new flu strain and German agents had released it in the US.
That’s not as bonkers as it sounds. All the great military powers welcomed the new century by developing chemical and biological warfare. Hence the proliferation of chlorine and phosgene gas on the Western Front. Then with America entering the war, the German military did successfully introduce an equine disease in Latin America, which wiped out thousands of horses; Latin America being the main source of horse power for the US Army.
The US government’s early-day spin doctors intervened saying ‘don’t mention the war’! If it became known as German Flu it could demoralise the American public and give the impression that the Germans were winning with new fangled biological weapons. And it couldn’t be American Flu as that would give the good ol’ US of A a bad name, especially as all their troops were piling in over here and sneezing over all of us. So they picked on the hapless Spaniards and blamed them. A true story.
Such black arts are now giving the current-day health authorities nightmares. Usually the most vulnerable group in a flu pandemic is the frail elderly as, suffering from the ailments that old age brings, the new bug finishes them off; what senior medical professionals grimly refer to, usually behind closed doors, as accelerated harvesting (I always feel they should accompany that expression with a loud ‘ ha ha ha’).
But this time around the Health Protection Agency in the UK is warning that the most vulnerable group will be the 25-35 age group. Eh? Shouldn’ t they be the most resilient health wise? Not so, because we have been showered with propaganda that there’s no room for throwing a sickie in the new capitalist world order. This age group will get the bug but still go to work, making themselves worse and infecting everybody else in the process. You know the adverts – hard working, sensible middle management man gets flu just before crucial business deal, then confounds swarthy rival upstart by taking the magic elixir courtesy of the drug companies, and wins the day. Hurrah! Added to this barrage have been the punitive Sickness Policies across the private and public sectors, where the unwell are penalised with Notices of Concern from the management, pay docked and so on. So it is the cream of the workforce that’s going to cop it.
The World Health Organisation estimates that when the flu pandemic hits, it will affect 25 per cent of the workforce at the very least. In the UK, the Department of Health are revising this upwards to 50 per cent because the number of working women is matching men here and that means either partner taking time off, even if they are flu free, to look after snotty kidliwinks or sort out the child care chaos of sudden school closures due to all the teachers getting the sneezes.
Incidentally, the DoH estimates for the armed forces that the sickness rate should be increased by eight per cent, because the close proximity in which service men and women are confined, in barracks and submarines etc which will see the Big Bug spread like wildfire. So, as long as we can find enough supplies of hankies and tubs of Vic, it would be a good time for the masses to take power, no doubt rushing to the barricades shouting ‘All powber – achoo! (sobby cobrades) to the Sobiets!’
So a dilemma for the State. They have spent the past decade whipping us into work, regardless of how ill we were. Now they are rapidly trying to back-track to make sure the infected are kept out of the workplace to isolate the virus before it brings down half the workforce, and markets and profits all come crushing down in an avalanche of snot. The government has been leaning on the pharmaceutical companies to lay off of the management hero beats flu ads. Not that it appears to be working. The latest ads from Kleenex tissues proclaim Blow loud and proud! No, instead stay at home and suffer in silence, and don’t infect all your work mates. That way, many more of us will survive.
