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It's Official: Swine Flu Is a Pandemic
The "quiet epidemic" is back.
Swine flu all but disappeared from the news headlines in recent weeks -- only to make a shocking comeback on June 11:
WHO declares first 21st century flu pandemic
GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization declared the first flu pandemic of the 21st century on Thursday, Sweden's health ministry said. The health ministry said the United Nations agency was raising its pandemic flu alert to the top phase 6 on a six-point scale, indicating the first influenza pandemic since 1968 is under way.
To us here at Elliott Wave International, what continues to be most interesting is the timing of the swine flu outbreak. As we've reported before, disease epidemics are not random. Historically, they occur at specific moments in human history. The June issue of The Socionomist, a new monthly publication by our friends at the Socionomics Institute, points out the following facts in Part II of the study "A Socionomic View of Epidemic Disease: Stress, Physiology, Threats and Strategies":
Recall that Part I of this study (see the May Socionomist) showed that major epidemics tend to erupt near significant lows within major bear markets, especially near or just after the ultimate bottoms. Like SARS in 2002, the 2009 swine flu erupted when the socionomic model said it would: after a strongly negative social-mood trend.
We are currently approaching another dangerous juncture in humanity’s fractal growth pattern. The roots run back to the year 2000, when the world’s stock markets peaked, marking the beginning of a large-degree negative trend in social mood and a substantial upturn in highly stressful events. Stress ... increases the risk of disease.
To prove this point, p. 2 of the June Socionomist presents two charts showing an "extraordinary correlation" between foreclosure rates in the U.S. (by county) and the reported cases of H1N1 flu in the U.S. (by county). Following the WHO's announcement today, Alan Hall, the author of the study "A Socionomic View of Epidemic Disease" offered this comment:
"Negative social mood is never the only factor in a pandemic, but it is a likely one. It is not simply a coincidence that the first flu pandemic of the 21st century, the first since 1968, follows the onset of the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression. Financial and social stresses are reaching levels that most people alive today have never experienced. Major negative social-mood trends can have major consequences for human immunity."
You can learn more in Part II of the study "A Socionomic View of Epidemic Disease" in the June Socionomist. You will also learn how environmentalism rises and falls with commodities; what it takes for a restaurant to succeed in a bear market; and how social mood drives success of Disney movies. Plus, you get free links to two other pertinent socionomic studies.