Predictions - Swine flu will be forgotten about in October 2010

Submitted By:	j_o_james
Author:	Jonas James
Status:	Never happened
Source:	Link
Predicted:	October 16, 2009
Happens:	October 2010

Details

Seems that every few years there's a killer disease that's going to wipe out humanity, but it never does. I find it extremely unlikely that anyone will be talking about swine flu in October 2010. It will have been forgotten by the media and general public by then, and we will have moved on to the next fashionable thing to fear.

Explanation

Mad Cow Disease
http://www.google.com/trends?q=mad+cow+disease

Bird Flu
http://www.google.com/trends?q=bird+flu

SARS
http://www.google.com/trends?q=sars

Notice now after they peak, it's about a year's worth of time (if that) before they approach the bottom of the graph (zero?). Now look at swine flu: http://www.google.com/trends?q=swine+flu The peak was actually in April, so I could say that there will be little to no media coverage about swine flu in April, but I'll stick to October since I mentioned that month initially.

I should also mention this:

Ebola
http://google.com/trends?q=ebola

This might be considered an exception to my argument, but notice that an overwhelming majority of searches for "ebola" are from Thailand, so that may skew the search volume index. As for news reference volume, it peaked in September 2007, and since then has had little peaks, but it looks like as of this year, it is approaching the bottom of the graph (zero?) just like the others. So it took 2 years instead of 1 year to fall off the radar. But even if you consider this to be an exception, that means I'm 3 for 4, so the odds are still in my favor that swine flu will be forgotten about in a year.

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[ Moderator Edit ]

Ebola itself also has peaks where it does kill small groups of people, typically in Africa. Bird flu also still poses a real danger to humans if it jumps from human to human, but for now it can only seem to infect those who live in very close proximity to farm animals. Plus, I don't recall anyone saying H1N1 was going to "wipe out humanity".

See linked source on top right for more information and discussion on this topic.