We Indians tend to panic easily. Another national trait is scare mongering. When you combine the two together, you get the current hysteria over the swine flu pandemic. There were barely two dozen deaths all over the country till the weekend. But our frenzied response is as if an apocalypse is at hand.

Mumbai has shut down its schools, colleges and cinema theatres. Delhi has imposed the antiquated 1887 Epidemic Diseases Act, compelling private hospitals to prepare special wards for infected patients. The Tamil Nadu authorities have advised residents not to visit Maharashtra. Ten thousand queued up outside one Pune government hospital alone to get themselves tested for the disease.

A PIL as been filed demanding that festivals not be celebrated in pubic this season in Mumbai. Every second chemist shop in Delhi is selling masks. Every person with a slight sniffle is convinced that he or she is in the grip of a deadly disease. Most of the Capital's schools have been closed, partly because of pressure from agitated parents who refuse to send their children to school.

Now let's pause and take a rational look at the mortality figures worldwide. There have been 436 swine flu-related deaths in the USA so far. The death toll figures in other countries which have been badly affected by the H1N1 virus are: Argentina 338, Mexico 149, Australia 92 and the UK 41.

Except in Mexico, where the first human swine flu fatality was reported and the US government was breathing down its neck, no other country has pushed the panic button the way we have.

... contd.