In Case You Missed It, It Isn’t 2009: Pandemics Then and Now

The biggest difference between the current coronavirus and comparisons to H1N1 in 2009 isn’t who is president, or the media. It’s us.

Flyers at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport wearing facemasks on March 6th, 2020 as the COVID-19 coronavirus spreads throughout the United States. Photo by Chad Davis via Flickr

Fear is a stinky cologne, blame is a lazy man’s wages, and both put together inside a health crisis and mixed with politics is just reality in the Year of Our Lord 2020 in America as the coronavirus unfolds.

Media and social media is spending a good chunk of their time on comparing and contrasting the current COVID-19/coronavirus to the H1N1/swine flu pandemic of 2009–2010. Supporters of the president are quoting the statistics from that outbreak — 60.8 million cases (range: 43.3–89.3 million), 274,304 hospitalizations (range: 195,086–402,719), and 12,469 deaths (range: 8868–18,306) in the United States — as a stark contrast to the current numbers for coronavirus. Others are pointing out that those are final numbers whereas we are currently in the early stages of the just declared COVID-19 pandemic. The right is decrying that then-President Obama didn’t get blame for the crisis because “the media” shielded him from such unpleasantness, the left is decrying that piece of groupthink whataboutism as a deflection from the current President Trump’s performance thus far. The more extreme voices insist…