Good News

...Well, 'good' as in high quality:

"The Los Angeles County coroner's office is investigating two recent deaths that officials say could be related to the recent global swine flu outbreak. However, no tests have come back positive for the swine flu, and medical examiners have not officially determined what caused the deaths."

And by high quality, I actually mean no quality.

I, like the rest of the public, also sometimes like to make statements that have no evidence whatsoever.

These people died of the flu? Well, then, it must be that ol' swine pandemic goin' around!

...Or, perhaps, it was just our forgotten friend the seasonal flu: 13,000 killed in U.S. by 'regular flu' since January 2009.

"No fewer than 800 flu-related deaths were reported in any week between January 1 and April 18, the most recent week for which figures were available."

Wow - 800 deaths per week. Now that's something. Call me when the swine flu gets close to these numbers - I'll gladly remind anyone how much energy they've spent thinking about one and not the other.

But don't get me wrong. It's not about the time you spend worrying about various external threats. It's the emphasis you put on other people's perceptions of those threats. Worry about whatever you want, for as long as you want, but at least do yourself the justice of trying to measure the difference between reality and common perception of reality.

I'm often surprised at the size of variance between the two...