I thought long and hard over this one and I can safely say I thought Egypt was flipping out a little when it came to the reaction undertaken towards the whole swine flu panic that hit the world.

Completely eradicate an entire species from the country? Destroy a palpable industry that clearly is the livelihood of so many already below the poverty liners? Start this entire universal finger pointing face covering laughter stifling reaction after we had just come out of the whole Gaza thing! Risk what is known as the Garbage Village starting demonstrations or even considering strikes which would eventually leave Cairo drowning in Garbage in a matter of days?

Well, they had to have more than a few compelling reasons to do it, I thought. I don’t necessarily have that much faith in their decision making abilities or rational, but here’s the thing..this over reaction has been justified by the government officials using the lamest and least convincing arguments..

“If Swine flu spreads in Egypt more than 18 million could be at risk”...although the 6% fatality rate that has been put aside for the swine flu would total to like 4.8 million.

“People must understand that the slaughter order has nothing to do with the Swine flu”...urm, no comment on that one..Anyways, here’s my take on all this...

The contamination risk of this flu in this country would be frightening, I mean bird flu was one thing, and human-human contamination was not a certainty, while bird-human was. But with swine flu, if ONE garbage worker gets the flu, which he will naturally decide is JUST a flu, I would honestly be scared.
ONE garbage worker living and working amongst an estimated 60,000 - 70,000, working days, door to door service, gives the disease an exposure rate that scares me!

With every door to door service he conducts, an entire family is then at risk, and then the other members the family is in contact with, ranging from entire schools that the children go to, universities, and the work place, and ofcourse, each and every one of the 60 or 70 thousand who actually live in the same place as Swine Flu-er #1.

Honestly, and objectively (i admit perhaps not very logically) if this thing starts here, Egypt is fu**ed!
Taking it from another spin, even with the amount of people who could get infected, they still have a 94% survival chance. Sure, but! Within this percentage, we do not have the medical capacities, preparations, technologies nor stamina, to handle any of these consequences. Our hospitals will not be hygienic enough, nor organized enough, nor safe enough, nor quick enough, nor smart enough, nor alert enough to absorb any dimension of this virus.

Which would eventually take a much uglier media-frenzy phase than the one we think we’re currently experiencing. This is when Egypt would truly be subjected to humiliation and scrutiny and criticism and probably SHOCK from the entire world. The government would look sooo bad, that it could just trigger much bigger things, one of which is never a too far fetched idea in the minds of the more conspiracy-loving, like a coup!

I honestly don’t think the government cares about the 18 million at risk, hell it would be better for the entire country if we’re 20 million less. I don’t think the government really cares about the people’s health or safety...but in reality, the government must care about itself, and this would reflect really badly on the entire cabinet if it gets out of hand, because it WILL, and very quickly, uncover so much incompetency it will be the joke of the century.

So are the 300,000 little piggies worth it?

I do feel especially bad for the people who depend on this industry for a living. They are already living in unlivable conditions, they are already some of the poorest in the country, they are already some of the sickest, unhealthiest, malnutritioned and neglected group of people. They truly will suffer from this call, they will lose so much money, and they will bare so much MORE anger and bitterness.

As much as I would have liked for the reaction to be of a little more controlled-environmental nature...it isn’t. There’s no control in this virus’s spread, and so I guess there’s no controlled way of going about containing it.

Sure many conspiracies surfaced, even to the point where some decided that the virus was doctored and expected and that the universal economic crisis was the result.

Some more locally oriented thought this was all a conspiracy against the garbage workers to start eliminating their business to give way to private garbage companies.

Some accused the Pope of Alexandria to be in on it too..
Some took it to the Joos, and some pitched it to Islam being ever-so holier than thou!

Whatever, who’s really to know what’s a conspiracy and what’s utter paranoia? The facts are facts, and the fact is, weighing all of this, I don’t mind their over reaction on this one. I don’t mind it at all...