
That image pretty much sums up tonight's program -- a very serious story that Anderson took great pains to assure us they had no intention of overdoing. Even the graphic points out the fact that we don't yet know what we are dealing with, as did the later 'flipper' factoid which pointed out that the World Health Organization has so far confirmed only 38 of the deaths in Mexico as being swine flu. If we are very, very, very lucky, this is just a bad outbreak of flu that is spreading rapidly due to airline travel.
But for now, keeping up with the worst-case scenario is the only chance of curtailing a pandemic if this is the real deal. Dr. Sanjay Gupta is in Mexico City to check out the hospital where most of the first cases were treated.
Erica Hill listed the spread of suspected cases in the US and what steps are being taken to contain it. (Although, please, officials, spare us the "stay home if you feel sick" mantra. This is America, we aren't allowed to stay home when we're sick!)
Tonight's panel isn't exactly of the pundit variety -- Sanjay, joined by Dr. Carlos Del Rio (Professor of Global Health), and Nathan Wolfe (Director, Global Viral Forecasting Initiative). They discuss the medical aspects of the situation. My question is, once a disease passes from animal to human, does it have to change enough that our bodies can fight it off better? I mean, isn't it astonishing that despite the massive increase in air travel, there has not already been an airborne-contagion that flattened us? Maybe we are sharing enough germs with one another that our resistance is building up?
Nevertheless, for now everyone is nervous about traveling anywhere. The affected school in NYC had just had a bunch of students come back from Mexico, and Anderson talked to a 16-year-old who was very sick just two days ago but now looks very much on the road to recovery. I guess that Tamiflu works after all.
Thelma Gutierrez reports from the border crossing at San Ysidro, where they have a quarantine area but have not yet had to use it. (Okay, 'fess up -- how many of you are wondering when Lou Dobbs will start recommending that anyone who tries to jump the border now be shot on sight?)
Tom Foreman does a KTH segment on how we all promised last time there was a scare that we would be good little governments and stock up on Tamiflu and make sure medical research was better funded. Mmm-hmm.
Some quick non-flu items -- Randi Kaye with an update on the Craigslist Killer, who was apparently $130,000 in debt from student loans (although something tells me he won't have to "make do" with a court-appointed defense lawyer). He may also have targeted men, but only one so far has come forward.
A brief look at the Time 100 Most Influential by way of a snippet of Suzy Welch interviewing Suze Orman.
360 Bulletin: Wall St down, same-sex marriages officiated in Iowa; and a truly bone-headed blunder in the form of one of the planes used as Air Force One doing a low pass over Manhattan flanked by a couple of F-16s. It would seem to me that there are likely several Air Force personnel being demoted tonight! (Even assuming the three pilots were just following orders, who the heck gave those orders?!)
More questions regarding the flu, via iReport and blog, get answered, then The Shot (really the only clip-worthy moment tonight, I'm afraid):
One full-length screengrab left over:
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Just a couple of bonus clips from last week -- Wednesday's 'Dispatch' from Peter Bergen (yes, with the Time promo at the beginning...):
Friday's talk with Nic Robertson about the situation with the Taliban in Afghanistan:
And the second part that also brought in Paul Cruikshank:
That's it for me tonight -- sorry it's so brief, but I am in the midst of what is so nicely known as a dental weekend. (Hey, this is the weekend for me!) Which translates to a broken crown last night, an emergency procedure today to smooth off the bits that were cutting my tongue, and an extraction tomorrow. Oh, yippee! (They WILL give me good pain meds, though, right????)
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