Artist Humberto Ramos announced this morning on his blog that he would be withdrawing from a convention appearance at Comicpalooza in Houston this weekend, citing concerns about traveling in Mexico as a result of the country’s recent outbreak of Swine Flu.
“Fortunately Me and my family and and friends we are all alright,” wrote Ramos, “but this is a more important reason to remain alert and precocious, avoiding places where is a big concentration of people is one the main warnings we got from day one of the outbreak, so being in a plane or the airport is not the best place to be right now.”
There have been nearly 1600 cases of Swine Flu in Mexico, and nearly 150 deaths to date. Fox recently canceled its Mexico City premiere of X-Men Origins: Wolverine over concern about the virus.
A representative for Comicpalooza told Newsarama, “The only statement we have made is that Humberto Ramos has decided to cancel his appearance due to concerns about the swine flu in Mexico. No other creators have made a similar decision. According to what we have seen on the swine flu in the US media, swine flu does not appear to be very contagious, and appears to require some form of touching to spread. We will be providing hand sanitizer to our dealers and artists for their use during the event. We do not expect to be very much affected by the swine flu epidemic.”
April 30th, 2009 at 11:55 am
Over 10,000 people died from the regular flu this year. Where was the panic about that? According to reports, only 8 of the 150 deaths attributed to swine flu were caused by it.
There’s being cautious and then there’s being paranoid.
April 30th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Rafe – I frankly agree completely; don’t even get me started on the ridiculous fearmongering that’s going on during a slow news week for the mainstream press. But it is what it is.
April 30th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
@Rafe – the head of the CDC was saying that 36,000 ppl die from the flu during any given flue season. While I agree that some caution is necessary, I think the media is waaaaay overboard and everyone is getting hooked on the scare porn aspects of it all. But given the ratings this is surely getting the media, and hits on websites, I anticipate a “Flu 2009: The Aftershock” series of reports this fall when the season starts up, and news and websites realize they can terrify people into viewership again.
April 30th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
well, i agree about fearmongering, but one reason that it’s concerning is that the more vulnerable can and are vaccinated prior to flu season (and the fact that the regular flu is seasonalized is also important). another is that people have some natural immunity to the regular flu and don’t have any immunity to this one. so it’s not like “they” are just making stuff up.
January 17th, 2011 at 6:24 pm
ho ho ho! Santa likes your blog a lot! Keep up the great work