| Follow us on Twitter |
Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday that he would not recommend taking any commercial flight or riding in a subway car "at this point" because swine flu virus can spread "in confined places." A little more than one hour later, Biden rushed out a statement backing off.
I would tell members of my family — and I have — I wouldn’t go anywhere in confined places now," Biden said on NBC’s "Today" show.. "It’s not that it’s going to Mexico. It’s [that] you’re in a confined aircraft. When one person sneezes, it goes all the way through the aircraft. That’s me. ...
"So, from my perspective, what it relates to is mitigation. If you’re out in the middle of a field when someone sneezes, that’s one thing. If you’re in a closed aircraft or closed container or closed car or closed classroom, it’s a different thing."
That contradicted more restrained advice from President Barack Obama and the federal government — and the last thing the White House wants to do right now is shut down the airline industry and big-city subways out of mass panic.
Biden's comments have not been received unanimously by the public. While some say he is right, some others say that it's easy for him to say that because as a top ranking official he has access to many other means. The general public does not have all those privileges. People who live in major cities such as New York City and Chicago don't have a helicopter or can't afford a private limo to take them from home to work
Just looking at Twitter I can see that people are generally very critical of Joe Biden's swine flu comments. However, what would you advise your family when they asked you about swine flu prevention methods?
Posted April 30th, 2009 by Armen Hareyan
