In the article “Pandemic or Panic” (2010) by Brian Molloy
and the article “Hindsight is easy” (2010) by Erica Grove, they
both discuss the way WHO response to the outbreak of H1N1
influenza and they present different perspectives on how the
money was spent on and how the resource was distributed.
Molloy is neutral about the WHO’s response of H1N1 influenza
outbreak, while Molloy is highly skeptical. First, Molloy argues
that WHO send everyone into a panic about H1N1, but it is
not the threat people imaged it to be. Grove, however, states
that it is necessary for the WHO and the government to take
the threat of H1N1 seriously. Next, Molloy claims that British
government spend a lot of money on …show more content…
Grove also believes that there is a mismanagement of the
distribution of vaccine.
Discussion:
Molloy claims that the WHO and the government spends
massive expenditure on doses of vaccine, while the death rate
for H1N1 is far low than for ordinary influenza. He criticizes the
reports of H1N1 cases are exaggerated which send people into
a panic about H1N1. By contrast, Grove states that the WHO
did not overreact to the crisis. Rather, she feels grateful that
the authorities took the threat of a pandemic seriously. She
also points out that everything is always better to overprepare
than to underprepare. Molloy appears to have overlooked
that the powerful of virus can be. In fact, there are a couple
of factors like infectivity, severity and lethality which can all
affect the strength of a virus. Transmission is also a key factor
to determine how the virus spread and be identified. As Molloy
mentions that the death rate for H1N1 is relatively low than
for ordinary pandemic, it does not mean that H1N1 is a weak
influenza. Perhaps the low death rate is due to early trace