Bird flu in the news again

[chris1roll]

Apparently it "will definitely spread to the uk"

Via migrating birds whose flight paths pass over europe.

They then go on to say _if_ it mutates into a form that can be passed from human to human it could claim 500,000 lives in this country.
Now that sounds like a very large number, and understandably people are going to be somewhat worried by this.

However a quick spot of googling tells me that the UK population in 2004 stood at approx 60 million, and basic maths tells me that 500,000/60,000,000 * 100 = 0.83%
But the news doesn't tell us that.

Would it be right to say theres a bit of scaremongering going on, a la SARS (which turned out to be the worlds least scary virus)?

Edited because I lost the ability to spell effectively.

>> Edited by chris1roll on Thursday 25th August 19:12

[thunderstruck]

I'm not sure it matters as a percentage of the population. 500,000 is 500,000. Think of the news coverage that the tsunami generated. That "only" killed c.250,000 (undoubtedly a tiny percentage of all the countries affected).

Mind you, it is true that it may not mutate and I'm sure there is an element of scaremongering. It sells papers.

[chris1roll]

Yes I considered that just after posting, I didn't mean to sound flippant at all, and 500,000 lives would be a tragedy, but what I mean is, the liklihood of I as an individual, or you dying from it isn't that high?