How Did a Mild Flu Virus Get the Highest Warning Level Available?
Phase 6 is the highest warning level that indicates a pandemic capable of widespread human infection. However, in reality, the word ‘pandemic’ only means that a new virus is spreading across the world. It says nothing about its level of physical danger, but that was not always the case. WHO actually changed their definition of a pandemic just one month before raising the swine flu alert level. As Spiegel Online reported: “On the WHO Web site, the answer to the question “What is a pandemic?” included mention of “an enormous number of deaths and cases of the disease” — until May 4, 2009. That was when a CNN reporter pointed out the discrepancy between this description and the generally mild course of the swine flu. The language was promptly removed.” So the swine flu only became a “pandemic” because the WHO decided to change the definition in May last year to make it no longer necessary for an enormous amount of people to have contracted an illness or died before a pandemic could be cal
