Swine Flu outbreak

WildCat said:
eta: and to reiterate, right now there's people in their doctor's office with a sniffle demanding antibiotics because they're worried about H5N1. And more than likely their doctors will oblige them. And the drug-resistant strains which evolve from this irresponsible use of antibiotics will kill far more people than H5N1 ever will.
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Far more than this strain of H1N1, you mean. But with those two corrections, along with the difference that I would also add the overuse of 'antibacterial' cleaners, particularly hand cleaners instead of plain-old soap-n-water, I generally agree with you as far as the overall danger of this flu outbreak.

The danger in this flu outbreak-- what is making it a pandemic-- is that it's exotic enough that there is not much general resistance to it and people tend to get hit pretty hard and fast when such strains pop up. Combined with the absolute horrid healthcare for people with not-a-lot of money-- and I guarantee you that nearly everyone who dies from this is going to be lower-middle- or working-class-- this means that the fast spread of an exotic virus requires a strong reaction from health control organizations to prevent it from actually becoming dangerous. It's not very dangerous right now, though there are the same risks any bad flu virus has, but if the spreading of this disease is not managed efficiently it has the potential to become dangerous at some point, mostly due to complications and not the influenza itself.

So, yeah, there's cause for concern. But panic? The use of 'deadly' in reference to it? Completely over-the-top.
 
GreNME said:
Far more than this strain of H1N1, you mean. But with those two corrections, along with the difference that I would also add the overuse of 'antibacterial' cleaners, particularly hand cleaners instead of plain-old soap-n-water, I generally agree with you as far as the overall danger of this flu outbreak.
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Yeah, I'm getting my strains mixed up. I will now go back to just saying "swine flu" or "bird flu", damned the political correctness! :p

And the latest total worldwide deaths are in, the figure has been revised from 150 to... 7! http://www.smh.com.au/world/only-7-swine-flu-deaths-not-152-says-who-20090429-aml1.html
 
WHO said:
29 April 2009 -- The situation continues to evolve rapidly. As of 18:00 GMT, 29 April 2009, nine countries have officially reported 148 cases of swine influenza A/H1N1 infection. The United States Government has reported 91 laboratory confirmed human cases, with one death. Mexico has reported 26 confirmed human cases of infection including seven deaths.
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http://www.who.int/csr/don/2009_04_29/en/index.html

Now, the one confirmed death in the US was of a 2 year old visiting from Mexico, this may have been counted as one of the 7 Mexican deaths?
 
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"The CDC said today it has confirmed 109 cases of swine flu in the United States, an increase of 18 from its previous report. :boxedin: The virus has been confirmed in 11 states. Over the past week, CNN has been inundated with questions about the flu, technically known as 2009 H1N1. Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen tells you what you need to know. full story"
 
applecorped said:
First US death - a 2 year old from Texas.
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One of my students yesterday was getting freaked out in class about this death, and I wanted to nip the hysteria in the bud. So I calmly explained to the class that the normal flu kills about 36,000 Americans on average per year.

The kid's reaction: "Oh... that's not so bad then."

Hysteria averted. Panic doesn't help the situation at all.
 
Sefarst said:
SARS, Bird Flu, Mad Cow, now Swine Flu? Who keeps coming up with these diseases?
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They need to fill those hours at those round-the-clock news channels.

Pardalis may remember that, at least in Québec a few years back, it was Meningitis, and then Flesh-Eating Bacteria.
 
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WildCat said:
Yeah, I'm getting my strains mixed up. I will now go back to just saying "swine flu" or "bird flu", damned the political correctness! :p
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"Swine Flu, or as farmers in the pork industry like to call it, Bird Flu..." - Stephen Colbert last night. :)

WildCat said:
And the latest total worldwide deaths are in, the figure has been revised from 150 to... 7! http://www.smh.com.au/world/only-7-swine-flu-deaths-not-152-says-who-20090429-aml1.html
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Yeah, I just got off the phone with a rep from a vendor we use here, and he was talking about concern for his 2-year-old daughter. I basically told him that as long as he's prepared to treat the symptoms for her and can take her to the doctor as necessary, he should be fine. He basically said that since the daycare is near a hospital anyway, he's not as concerned as the television is screaming he should be. It seems logic and reason are still alive despite the hype from the media whores screaming bloody murder.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
Just for the record, there is no evidence whatsoever that you can get swine flu from eating pork. Factory farming probably results in fewer people in contact with live pigs than traditional farming.
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Somebody should inform the Egyptian government about this little fact before they go wasting a bunch of their food supply...

Egypt orders slaughter of all pigs over swine flu
Egypt began slaughtering the roughly 300,000 pigs in the country Wednesday as a precaution against swine flu even though no cases have been reported here, infuriating farmers who blocked streets and stoned vehicles of Health Ministry workers who came to carry out the government's order.

The measure was a stark expression of the panic the deadly outbreak is spreading around the world, especially in poor countries with weak public health systems. Egypt responded similarly a few years ago to an outbreak of bird flu, which is endemic to the country and has killed two dozen people.

At one large pig farming center just north of Cairo, scores of angry farmers blocked the street to prevent Health Ministry workers in trucks and bulldozers from coming in to slaughter the animals. Some pelted the vehicles with rocks and shattered their windshields and the workers left without killing any pigs. ...
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This is a perfect example of people in power, who should know better, completely losing their **** and spreading hysteria :rolleyes:
 
gumboot said:
I heard an interesting theory for the virus today. We in the west created it so that it would infect Muslims and make them unclean (because it's a pig virus).

Then, when the Muslims finally catch on to this and cry foul
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You mean "fowl", which is to say they're the ones who created the avian flu.
 
WildCat said:
This will all be forgotten as soon as one person gets West Nile virus, and mosquito season is just around the corner!
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While I understand your point about the media hype and even agree with it to a certain extent, it isn't a smart thing to go around saying there's nothing to this thing. After all, I will take the CDC and WHO's authority over your snarky comments any day.
 
MattusMaximus said:
While I understand your point about the media hype and even agree with it to a certain extent, it isn't a smart thing to go around saying there's nothing to this thing. After all, I will take the CDC and WHO's authority over your snarky comments any day.
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My snarky comments are based on CDC and WHO reports.
 
rwguinn said:
Potential Pandemic.
Finally, somebody says it right, unlike the two who objected to my contention that it WASN't Pandemic, and who called me stupid and a CT'er.Potential!
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Uh, to correct the record, I didn't criticize you for calling it a pandemic, I criticized you for using a very loose definition of pandemic even after I directed you to the proper medical sources.

Btw, the CT subforums are still two doors down on the right...
 
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