Tan Kin Lian's Blog: Swine Flu

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Swine Flu

Is the swine flu epidemic over? Read this article.

Some people said that this scare was exaggerated and the drug companies benefited from selling the drug to billions around the world. Now the health authorities are stuck with these drug.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...: ...perhaps this is what is called "good problem !"; February 10, 2010 10:35 AM
Anonymous said...: The swine flu threat was real but the epidemic could be prevented by observing good hygiene and put infected people in quarantine. The jab is not necessary, money could be used in other areas like upgrading hospital facilities etc.; February 10, 2010 10:53 AM
Anonymous said...: 1) WHO worst fear did not materialize.

2) The World reacted to SF adequately.

3) We have seen first hand how the world due with a epidemic & how we fast track the vaccine.

Through this experience, we have witnessed first hand how the world react, work together and protected citizens in preparation for a epidemic. We can sleep better knowing we have a system to handle such outbreak especially when Sgp is one of the crossroad of the world.

For things we cannot control, let it be. Just go on our life as normal as possible.; February 10, 2010 11:16 AM
Anonymous said...: Perhaps the Government was really worried about the H1N1 flu. Many resources had been put in and also caused many inconveniences to the public (e.g. controls on hospital visits).

When it turned out to be not so threatening, Government may just make use of the situation and turned it to a major national exercise ( without telling the public) where lessons learnt can be used and prepared for the real one when it comes.

CCL; February 10, 2010 2:04 PM
Tan Kin Lian said...: In 1999, there was a scare about y2k bug that would affect computer systems. The government was also scared about this event and forced companies to have y2k compliance.

Some people, who use their common sense, said that there is no such danger, but the government was scared.

Nothing happened when 2000 came. The consultants pocked hundred million dollars in consultancy fees. Nobody wanted to investigate why there was such a scare.

Is it the same for the swine flu scare? Some people said yes.; February 10, 2010 2:33 PM
Robert Tan said...: Sometimes we cannot be 100% sure - SARs seemed pretty serious when it happened. H1N1 doesn't seem as serious on hindsight. Who knows what and when will be the next serious pandemic?

So sometimes, one just have to make a judgement based on available information.

Sometimes, we may be overly conservative, sometime we may not be conservative enough and that leave us under-prepared.

In general, the more serious the potential outcome and the higher the probability of the event happening, the greater the precaution that should be taken. Sometimes, it may be safer to err on the conservative side.

Whatever it is, if a cause of action is chosen based on as much information that could be made available in a given(reasonable timeframe), and the judgement is made bona fide which any other reasonably competent person would have made, there should be no regrets.

Where lessons can be learned, learn from them and move on. If someone can do a better job, we get them on board. If not, after we've got the best person on the job(and even he will not be infallible all the time), we let him do the job and move on.; February 10, 2010 3:07 PM
Robert Tan said...: By the way, is it a factual statement to state that the government forced companies to be Y2K compliant? Can they legally do that if they don't own these companies?

I thought only the shareholders or bosses can compel the companies to do something and the government can only "force" if companies or individuals are breaking the law.

I am not saying that the statement is untrue. I don't know one way or the other. Only thing that caused me to raise the question is that the statement doesn't seem logical at first glance. Again, I may be wrong.....; February 10, 2010 3:12 PM