Viruses doing damage!

As the swine flu spreads, there are discussions around pandemics and possible impact on world populations. Apparently, the Spanish flu was the worst pandemic of the 20th century (40% infected in 1919-1920) - as quoted:

The WHO estimates the Spanish flu resulted in upwards of 50 million deaths -- or more deaths than those during World War I. A virus as severe as Spanish flu has not been seen since.

I'm seeing the direct impact of a different kind of virus - this last weekend, a virus attack was directly responsible for my acting irrationally and removing an important system file from my computer, causing it to now be in a coma!

True - now is not the time to compare the effects of human and computer viruses (i have no intent to trivialize the situation), but the parallels are frustratingly similar. You can have a sick computer, which causes lethargy, or you can have a virus take a bad turn, and incorrect treatment can cause death! There are medicines, but some medicines are not yet in action, which makes us reactive - sometimes it is just too late! Specific human antibodies could possibly have prevented the outbreak of the swine flu...but they're not yet out there! What if my anti-virus program was updated on my computer, or the evil search engine results that I visited over the weekend for music lyrics were marked with a big red spider?

If only I had the Windows XP setup disk, this would be a quick "injection" fix! Unfortunately, thanks to software piracy, only OEM disks are made available (and mine just *happens* to be incompatible with my machine - why...why...why??).

A drug not available the only time it is required! Exactly like the shortages in the flu vaccine a couple of years ago!