Swine Flu Trickery?

I was listening to NPR on my way into work today and I was struck by the realization that it seemed like I was listening to an April Fools Day report.

I'm getting used to the constant updates on the "Swine Flu" pandemic from the media, from those I follow on Twitter, from talk at the water cooler, but I wasn't at all prepared for the strange story I heard on NPR this morning about how Egypt is ordering the slaughter of all their pigs.

There were many statements in the story that made me think I was being played a trick on:

• There are no reported cases of the "Swine Flu" in Egypt.
• Most in the Muslim world consider pigs unclean animals and do not eat pork because of religious restrictions.
• Health authorities have said you cannot contract the flu by eating pork.

I think it should be asked, in this age of information overload, are we forcing this seemingly irrational behavior by keeping everyone too informed?  Every 4th Tweet I see has "Swine Flu" in it.  Every other story on the news and on NPR is about Swine Flu. 

Are we forcing people to panic?

At least we're hearing less about how horrible our Economy is and how the Recession is ruining every ones lives.