Swine

The flu formerly known as swine may or may not amount to much this spring--evidence so far is not so much, though WHO scientists caution it's still too early to tell. It's both fascinating and disconcerting to hear doctors and medical reporters say contradictory things about it--for instance, on why younger patients have been hit harder (I've heard both that it's because of undeveloped immune systems, and immune systems that are too good and produce stuff that blocks up the lungs in fighting the infection). But one thing I heard that makes at least common sense is that this is a dress rehearsal: flu of any kind usually weakens in the spring and pretty much disappears in the summer, but a new spring strain typically recurs the following fall.

As a political opportunity it's also losing focus. For the GOPers, there's not enough travail to nail the Obama Administration with anything, and for Dems there's not enough to nail the GOPers with the consequences of crippling public health and killing flu prep money in the stim by calling it pork. Or of holding up key health appointments for unrelated political purposes. Even the entertainment value of the secessionist Texas gov begging for federal help didn't last long. The fickle national attention span moved on, before we got a real good look at who the swine really are.

But in the end it's a good thing: politics and public health crises don't mix, as was evidenced the last time the U.S. tried to deal with swine flu in the 70s. Neither party's administration distinguished themselves in that debacle. The Obama Administration's cool, competent and caring approach is the appropriate one.