{"id":116,"date":"2009-06-11T16:45:06","date_gmt":"2009-06-11T16:45:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/06\/swine-flu-h1n1-declared-first-pandemic-of-21st-century-now-what.html"},"modified":"2009-06-11T16:45:06","modified_gmt":"2009-06-11T16:45:06","slug":"swine-flu-h1n1-declared-first-pandemic-of-21st-century-now-what","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/06\/swine-flu-h1n1-declared-first-pandemic-of-21st-century-now-what.html","title":{"rendered":"Swine Flu (H1N1) Declared First Pandemic of 21st Century by WHO: Now What?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Swine Flu (H1N1) moved through the US news cycle like Britney Spears or Paris Hilton. Much ado&#8230;and then nothing. Yet, schools still closed in New York and three people &#8211; a 2 year old, a teenager and a person in their 60s &#8211; died here this week.\u00a0<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Then, just when it seemed like all of that hand sanitizer was a waste of hand washing, today the World Health Organization (remember them? so last month&#8217;s news) declared that H1N1 is, in fact, a pandemic and that countries where it appears to have peaked should be preparing for a second round. According to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/31207627\/\">this report from MSNBC,<\/a>\u00a0it is the southern hemisphere that we should watch as they enter into their flu season. In the meantime, a billion dollars has been allocated in the US for the development of a vaccine and the World Health Organization is discussing what they call the most difficult question &#8211; who will get the vaccine.\u00a0<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Who will get the vaccine? \u00a0The question stopped me as I read this article, which later reported that some folks in Argentina stoned a bus coming from Chile because they thought someone carrying the virus was on the bus.\u00a0<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>What are we to make of all of this. When news reports conger images of apocalypse \u00a0movies? Where is the reasonable center between panic and ambivalence? <a href=\"http:\/\/\">Who do we trust<\/a>\u00a0to provide us with facts that we can use to make rational decisions rather than respond with emotions like fear or cynicism? \u00a0Who do you trust?\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Swine Flu (H1N1) moved through the US news cycle like Britney Spears or Paris Hilton. Much ado&#8230;and then nothing. Yet, schools still closed in New York and three people &#8211; a 2 year old, a teenager and a person in their 60s &#8211; died here this week.\u00a0 Then, just when it seemed like all&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spiritual-growth"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Swine Flu (H1N1) Declared First Pandemic of 21st Century by WHO: Now What? - Flirting with Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/06\/swine-flu-h1n1-declared-first-pandemic-of-21st-century-now-what.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Swine Flu (H1N1) Declared First Pandemic of 21st Century by WHO: Now What? - Flirting with Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Swine Flu (H1N1) moved through the US news cycle like Britney Spears or Paris Hilton. Much ado&#8230;and then nothing. Yet, schools still closed in New York and three people &#8211; a 2 year old, a teenager and a person in their 60s &#8211; died here this week.\u00a0 Then, just when it seemed like all&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/06\/swine-flu-h1n1-declared-first-pandemic-of-21st-century-now-what.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Flirting with Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-06-11T16:45:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Joan Ball\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Swine Flu (H1N1) Declared First Pandemic of 21st Century by WHO: Now What? - Flirting with Faith","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/06\/swine-flu-h1n1-declared-first-pandemic-of-21st-century-now-what.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Swine Flu (H1N1) Declared First Pandemic of 21st Century by WHO: Now What? - Flirting with Faith","og_description":"The Swine Flu (H1N1) moved through the US news cycle like Britney Spears or Paris Hilton. Much ado&#8230;and then nothing. 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