overreact much?

Let's take a moment to ponder the wisdom of this:

Fort Worth ISD Out For Swine Flu

The entire Fort Worth Independent School District and several other schools have closed as swine flu cases spread across North Texas.

The Fort Worth ISD is closing all of its campuses beginning Thursday until May 11.

"This is a time the citizens of the community have to come together and support each other," Superintendent Melody Johnson said. "This is a very rare event in our history."

Johnson said she made the decision after county health officials recommended the mass closing.

"It's not our thinking that it's spreading so fast we have to do this," said Dr. Sandra Parker, of the Tarrant County Health Department. "But we want to prevent the spread."

Gleemonex and her commenters have the scoop on the general overall overblowniness. Now, let's consider a few specific points from the quoted portion of the article above:

1. "Fort Worth ISD Out For Swine Flu" Note that the FTWISD comprises 144 schools with 80,000 students and 11,000 employees. They have documented one confirmed case, and 10 "probable" cases. And not a single death or, presumably, even a single serious illness.

2. "...flu cases spread across North Texas..." Um, not so much. There are 17 confirmed cases in the entire state. And even if it were "spread[ing] across North Texas[!]", so what? Some kids get sick, have to miss school, have to lay in bed a couple of days... big f'ing deal.

3. "This is a time the citizens of the community have to come together and support each other..." Well, not come together, obviously. Stay apart, rather. Stay very very far apart. Because of contagion, ya know. And "support each other"? What the fuck does that even mean?

4. "Johnson said she made the decision after county health officials recommended the mass closing." So, yeah, uhhh... if this turns out to be a massive, supremely ill-advised overreaction, well, then, I was just following the recommendation of the, uh, you know, the "health officials", who practically begged me to close all the schools.

5. "It's not our thinking that it's spreading so fast we have to do this." Said the "health official". I mean, I'm certainly not the one who's overreacting here. I never said it was spreading fast, I just said it seemed to be, you know, spreading. Who's to say, after all, how fast it might, conceivably, spread. And of course we can stop the spread by all coming together and... uh, no, actually. Well, nevermind. Did I mention our children are our future?