It’s official.  I’m over the swine flu thing.

I don’t mean that I contracted the illness and recovered.  I mean that I’m over the non-stop media frenzy over the disease in which not a single one of the media outlets is actually reporting what anyone with half a brain can tell: NO ONE KNOWS WHAT’S ACTUALLY GOING ON.

Cue, for example, the jumble of headlines I saw this morning on my way into the office.  The New York Times was reporting that the virus appears to be slowing down.  USA Today, however, screamed that the World Health Organization was moving the pandemic level up another number.  “It’s a 5!  It’s almost a 6!  That’s the highest number there is!  They might have to invent a 7 just for this disease!”

Several of the more sensible (cue finger quotes) outlets are beginning to run the story that the hysteria about swine flu might just be far worse than the disease itself.

I had a real wall-banger moment the other day when I saw that Israeli politician Yakov Litzman suggested that the name “swine flu” was inappropriate because of the swine=not kosher connection (a couple of the more politically correct news orgs ran headlines, “Is the name ‘swine flu’ offensive to Jews and Muslims?”), and suggested instead that the flu be named the “Mexican flu.”  Because it’s apparently better to offend Mexicans than Jews or Muslims.

(For the record, the Jews and Muslims that I work with were all rolling their eyes over that one.  “It’s not like you’re impure if you catch the disease just because it’s named for a pig!”)

Even better is this little ditty from Qatar Airways:

Qatar Airways requires that all operating crew wear masks on flights from the United States – namely daily services from New York, Washington DC and Houston.

The airline has taken additional mandatory measures for all 1,100 flight deck and 3,400 cabin crew to be vaccinated against influenza to limit the risk of contamination to passengers and staff. The flu vaccine is a protective measure and only protects against a certain strain of flu, not swine flu, which is at the centre of the current health concerns.

Passengers on Qatar Airways’ flights originating from the US to Doha are being issued with masks upon boarding and advised to wear them inflight. In addition, all Qatar Airways’ customer contact staff in the United States and at Doha International Airport are required to wear masks.

Seriously.  How about giving all of the passengers little bottles of Purell and towlettes to wipe themselves down with, given the number of surfaces on your standard airliner that test positive for fecal bacteria?

None of this is to belittle the illness itself–the cousin of a friend of mine was among the first fatalities in Mexico City, and the family has been quarantined by the Ministry of Health.  There are people out there dying from it.  If as much attention were being paid to the treatment of the disease as to, say, semantincs and hokey “preventative measures,” the pandemic could be nearly over.

It’s like the entire world is waiting for The Stand to happen in real life.  (Which leads me to another riff: Considering that he’s pretty much the epitome of pop culture, Stephen King is really bad at inventing pop culture in his own novels.  In The Stand, for example, the popular name given to the strand of the superflu that wipes out humanity is “Captain Trips” — oh, no!  The Captain and Tenille are killing everyone! — and one of the main characters has a top 40 hit called “Baby, Can You Dig Your Man?”  Yes, the book was originally written in the 70s, but I have a hard time imagining that any of this was culturally relevant even then.)

Another friend announced that she was retiring to her bedroom with a bottle of wine and planned to watch all 8 hours of the miniseries in order to dodge the flu.  I don’t know if it’ll work as a preventative, but it will answer the question, “Whatever happened to Corin Nemec?”