What we need for the holidays is an outbreak of joy

摘要

An epidemiologist would say an 'outbreak' is an increase in incidence over that expected. Although the person-on-the-street may not have noticed, this year has seen a surprising number of outbreaks that we feel need to be subjected to passing public health comment. Here, we bring you a selection of the more notable ones and our suggestions for some useful ones for the coming year. For much of 2010 we experienced outbreaks of politics and electioneering, and this year many election cycles have coincided to make this an international phenomenon. Apart from the Australian federal and state government elections, there was a very public change-of-guard in the United Kingdom and the United States has undergone its own mid-term reorganisation.