Epidemic History Context: Swine Flu

Many medical historians choose to focus their studies on the social history elements of the history of medicine. Certainly, they may use quantifiable history and other techniques to support their thesis, but ultimately the majority of questions medical historians ask are intimately connected to the idea of how humans respond to disease, and why.

I had the pleasure of learning all about historical human responses to disease in a semester-long course about the history of epidemics. From the Black Death to AIDS, we looked at how diseases have been constructed and combated in both pre-scientific and post-scientific societies.

Naturally, my interest was piqued when I heard about this potentially pandemic swine flu.

I feel I owe it to potential history students of the future to make my observations on the reactions I’ve seen. (Nothing worse than scouring what seems like a juicy diary contemporary to an epidemic for some nice comments on your essay’s focal disease, only to come back empty handed. When time machines are invented, you 27th century kids reading this, feel free to come back and thank me for helping you out. Here’s a good thesis title too: “The 21st Century Swine Flu Epidemic: Privilege To LOL?”) Here follows my swine flu weather report.

There are two big categories of response which I’ve been privy to as Someone Who Uses The Internet(tm):

-Data sharing/contribution

-Humor

The first is fairly self-explanatory, and relates to sites like FluTracker (which, notably, is an upgrade from the first Google Map which was apparently unable to keep up with data and scaling demands. Let me also point out that the huge yellow “!” in the middle of the Pacific Ocean near California – right now a hotbed for swine flu – was kind of alarming before I realized it wasn’t a part of the data.)

Twitter has seen a fair few “X number of steps to avoid getting the swine flu” and “how to protect yourself and your loved ones” links. Most of the sites repeat the same information, filtered from authoritative sources like the NIH and CDC, etc. Wash your hands, wash your hands, wash your hands. And, perhaps, don’t go to Mexico – though the overriding sentiment I’ve been in touch with suggests that people are cancelling their trips for the pragmatic reason that everything is closed down there anyway.

Locally, a few reports of swine flu didn’t stop the local NHL playoff game between the Canucks and the Blackhawks at GM Place. Everything has been business as usual, with perhaps an increased presence of pump hand sanitizer.

The newscasts I’ve watched have seemed level-headed, though already some segments have begun to air that ask the question, ‘are we overreacting to swine flu?’ The “we” being the media primarily, but also governments and individuals. I can’t speak to individual and small group hysteria (which I’ve heard is circulating, but haven’t encountered myself), but I can certainly say that I’d rather see a government “overreact” with disease control than underestimate a viral opponent, particularly when dealing with a relatively new virus which had several early fatalities. It’s better to look back and say, “whoops” and feel embarrassed than to look back and say, “whoops” and feel dead.

While an air of sober inquiry characterizes most newscasts and data-sets available online to keep abreast of the latest developments, the swine flu jokes have flown so hard and fast that they’re all groaners now. Already. Being enjoined to cure swine flu with a bacon sandwich is commonplace, crying “swine flu!” with a laugh in response to any cough and sniffle is standard, and mocking anyone actually concerned about the ‘epidemic’ with melodramatic shouts of “the aporkalypse is here!” goes on both online and in real life. It seems amazing to me that in the space of roughly a week, our collective trepidation and curiosity dissolved utterly into comedy, and just as quickly, disinterest as the jokes grew stale.

In the wake of it, we’re left with blatantly humorous shirts like this one, and the unflappable chic of various designers offering a stylish alternative to the hypochondriac’s mask.

It seems like the internet generation isn’t holding its breath. With access to the latest to-the-second information, it’s easy to feel informed and to maintain a grasp of the disease’s scope both in terms of its spread and its morbidity rates. This feeling of control and perspective may be why dismissive humor was so prevalent so quickly in North America as a collective response to swine flu. It will be interesting to see how the view of the flu changes as the problem itself evolves. And, in the long term, if the way we access information has irrecovably altered our social relationship with transmittable diseases.