More Swine 'Flu Hysteria

I've never really understood news sources that spend so much of their time warning their readers that they could be about to die. Personally, I don't want to spend half my life reading about what infections could, in theory, kill me. Clearly some people do, though, as the media is droning on about swine 'flu being the end of everything with mindless repetition. 

The latest update in apocalyptic infection comes via Yahoo news:

Chief Medical Officer for England, Sir Liam Donaldson, said figures being used by the NHS to plan its services show that a 30 per cent infection rate among the population could possibly lead to 65,000 deaths.

Scary figures. Although even the most basic read of the paragraph shows that a lot of that is hypothetical. If 30% of the population are infected the 65,000 people could die. Likewise, if 40% of the population are infected, then 13 people could die. And you end up with a fun game of mindless predictions. Here's my go: I predict that if 23.7% of the population are infected, then swine 'flu might come round to your house uninvited, drink your beer, diss your mother and look at your kids in a funny way. 

The one certainty in life is death. I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking that the life that goes before that certain death would be a whole lot more enjoyable if we didn't have to read endless hysterical articles about theoretical threats to us with tedious regularity.