Raul Aranda post 3

This article comes from abc news talking about whether the H1N1 virus was ‘oversold’ or not. The article goes to talk about how we are now experiencing a perhaps milder flu season than normal. With this it would be assumed that the H1N1 was oversold since it caused so much panic throughout the country, and yet here we are in what seems to be a little worse than average flu season. The article then goes to talk about how public health officials faced a difficult spilt because if they did not prepare for the virus they would be criticized for not being prepared, yet if they did and nothing happened, they would be blamed for wasting so much money on something that did not even happen. It seems the latter of the two happened, but the article goes on to say it could be because of the vaccines, but also because people are being more cautious so as not to become infected with the H1N1 virus. The control I see here seems to apply both to the public, but also to the public health services by the public. I say this because although it seemed that the H1N1 virus was oversold since the virus has not caused as much problems as it could have, it still caused the public to become fully aware of the potential threat and take measures against it, in turn, becoming ‘manipulated’ by the government to follow what was suggested, buying sanitizer and the like. Although in a way the public health services may have had something to do with it, they are now being scolded because the virus has not had such an impact. Like stated, now that they are prepared and people have done what they need to do to prevent infection, they are now being criticized for creating a false sense of alarm. Here I see the government and health services placing control on the public, but also the public controlling the health services because if measures had not been pressured to be taken, then the health services would have been criticized further.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/SwineFluNews/swine-flu-blown-proportion/story?id=9270149