Swine Flu Mapping

Whenever you see the news recently you are pretty much guarenteed to see something about the Swine flu that is especially prevalent in Mexico and the United States. I thought that it would be interesting to look at a map and see if there is a pattern of where the flu is located. Since the flu started in Mexico there is a large amount of cases that are in Mexico and the United States. Also Canada and Costa Rica have both had several cases of the flu. This all seems to make sense although why does Costa Rica have a several cases while other Central American countries do not have any reported cases. You have to wonder how long it will take before some South American countries start reporting cases because of their proximity to Mexico. Going back to the map you take a look at the rest of the countries that have reported cases of the flu. Most of these countries are wealthy countries in Europe, although New Zealand and Israel also have reported cases of the flu. When you look at it in comparison to where they are located to Mexico it makes no sense that there would be reported cases. If you think about these countries one major similarity comes out, they are all pretty wealthy. This means that people are more likely to go abroad on vacation. Evidently people from these countries went to Mexico and brought back the flu from there. This kind of travel with globalization is what makes so many people scared whenever it comes to viruses and diseases. Because of the travel of people disease is able to spread very fast throughout the world. This is one of the problems that comes along with globalization and which people will have to deal with in the future.