One of the most amusing overreactions to the “swine flu” is Egypt’s decision to slaughter all of the pigs in the country. While is a hilariously misguided campaign on its own, it serves as a very serious example of a problem with the nationalist mentality.
Globalization has led to an increased concentration of goods production, as manufacturing is shifted to countries that are not as far along in their economic development. This means that products like flu vaccines are produced in a few concentrated locations. During normal times, this simply means that transportation costs need to be considered. However, when countries begin to panic about something like a flu pandemic, scenarios involving nationalization of manufacturers materialize.
The same nationalist focus can lead to interesting implications for the world. Egypt announcing that it will slaughter all of its pigs in isolation does not have a noticeable impact on the world, but what if every country announced an identical plan at the same time in a misguided attempt to save their own citizens?
If any single animal population was in fact responsible for a disease pandemic, this concept could actually be tested. If every nation (or all that possessed the species in question) decided to eliminate their animals, there would be an organized, conscious, and preempted elimination of a species. Obviously, an outcome like this would be highly unlikely, but it is interesting that these kinds of scenarios are not considered when governments make decisions that would be destructive if adopted by everyone.
Currently, I am in an area that supposedly has a flu outbreak, and I am amazed at the lack of thinking that has led to our current situation. My local university basically inspired a panic about the flu through overuse of their post-VT emergency notification system, and then created highly visible testing centers. Thanks to the bottom-feeding of 24-hour news reporting coupled with the fear-mongering of the university, a significant portion of the student body was allowed to worry themselves into what is likely mentally-induced “sickness”. Many students were told by their families to return home, which in the case of a true outbreak would have exposed an exponentially larger population to any disease. Just like the nationalist problem described above, these students returning home would have put a bigger population at risk due to their selfishness.
When groups of people isolate themselves (whether a continent, country, city, or family), decisions that are made to benefit the group at the expense of others carry unintended consequences. Obviously, the concept of defending those you are close to is throughly engraved in modern human nature, and it would be almost pointless to combat. However, the externalities that are created by selfish behavior are rarely addressed, and should be considered before decisions are announced.
If my university would have thought about the panic their announcements inspired instead of focusing on being “proactive”, I think I would be looking at a very different campus today. Because the campus is now in a paranoid uproar and has basically ground to a halt, the university is now trying to convince the population that things are in fact okay. Ironically, this step would have been completely unnecessary if they would have calmly addressed the issue in the first place.
Having a front row seat to this absurdity has made me think about how panics are created. Obviously, the “swine flu” panic is a media darling, creating overdone concern. This concern compounds into a full panic once local cases are “identified”, and the population then creates pointless customs in attempt to show they are being vigilant. Soon enough, both the flu and the customs created will be forgotten, and the population will wait for the next media focus. It seems to me that there is an identifiable cycle of media focus, panic and new customs, and forgetfulness once the media moves on.
Recent events like the plane flying low in New York seem to support this idea. New Yorker’s do not seem to worry about plane attacks any longer, but once they see the stimulus that was given thousands of hours of media coverage like a low flying plane, the automatically abandon office buildings. The current flu will become a much stronger stimulus than something like SARS, which was only covered by the media as something happening far away. Since the flu is a common annual occurrence, I hope the attention devoted to this current strain does not result in population panics every winter.