Tim Leffel's Cheapest Destinations

Whine Flu, Schwine Flu

I haven’t weighed in much on this overblown media frenzy of this swine flu episode because I’m really tired of hearing about it and think we’d all be better off if everyone started focusing on things that really do kill lots of people—like guns and malaria.

I’m flying to Los Cabos in two weeks and of course there hasn’t been one case there. A Moon guidebook author has a great post about how there hasn’t been one case in Puerto Vallarta either, but that hasn’t stopped the hysteria. Keeper quote: “The only real repercussion I’ve experienced has been diminished lines at the bank and a better parking spot.” The Not-So-Great Mexican Swine Flu Pandemic of 2009

I’m sure when I arrive in Guanajuato this summer the main repercussion will be a shortage of hand sanitizer.

I know logic never wins in these situations, especially when you have 24-hour news channels trying to out-sensationalize each other to keep viewers tuned in. But when we get this riled up over something that has killed fewer people worldwide than your average Pakistani car bomb, something’s very wrong, and the effects on peoples’ livelihoods are far worse than what we’re scared of.

I like to collect little safety factoids to keep things in perspective, so here are a few winners from the “perception vs. reality” department.

* “Drowsy driving” is now a factor in more than 100,000 accidents a year in the U.S., resulting in 1,500 deaths. Travel while texting is coming on strong.

* Between March 10 and April 10 of this year, 50 people were gunned down in the lower 48 by wackos with firearms who went on a shooting spree. (Number of swine flu deaths in the U.S. this year? Three.)

* Since 1976, there has been an average of 18 mass murders in the U.S. each year where a gunman kills four or more people.

* Every DAY in India, road accidents kill an average of close to 300 people.

* Oil and gas rig workers are killed at the rate of 30 per 100,000. According to the CDC, the rate for accidental death among the general population is 39.6 per 100,000. It’s safer on an oil rig than on your morning commute.

* Your odds of being killed on a commercial airline flight on a major carrier: 1 in 13.57 million.

* The sport that sends the most high school students to the emergency room? No mom, it’s not football. It’s cheerleading.

* Deaths caused by the mid-90s Ebola virus outbreak in the Congo: 225. Deaths caused by the mid-90s civil war in the Congo: 2.9 million.

* Around 2.7 million people a year die from malaria. That’s the equivalent of a 9/11 World Trade Center bombing every ten hours.

Here’s what you’re really most likely to die from. Sorry, but it’s pretty boring stuff. Your best bet of living a long life? Eat well, exercise, stay happy, and don’t smoke. Oh, and keeping the TV viewing to a minimum doesn’t hurt either, especially if you can get your news from better sources.

Your “internal locus of control” has a bearing on things too. In the past two decades Illinois has had about 50 percent more tornadoes than Alabama but far fewer fatalities.” The journal Science found that more people died in the latter though because “Alabama residents believed their fate was controlled by God, not by them.”

Related posts:

1. The Actual Risk of Attack