The Wire

Around 128 people are now being tested in this country for swine flu and the government has ordered all airports to install thermal scanners. Though there are no cases yet confirmed here there is panic in the air and how the scare or pandemic, whichever it turns out to be , is dealt with is pretty important for the averga e person’s day to day life. In the 1918 – 1919 influenza outbreak between ten and twenty thousand Australians died, but the toll was comparatively much lower than in other countries. Should we be learning lessons from that time ? Athol Yates is Executive Director of the Australian Homeland Research Security Centre and author of three books about the pandemic in 1918. He says how this situation is handled by authorities will have a big effect on the average person’s life.