Swine Flu outbreak

Checkmite said:
Perhaps it was the reaction by the public to the "press paranoia" - i.e, more diligence in health precautions and so forth - that prevented those things from becoming worse than they were.

So, I was happy to learn that Ohio's first case of swine flu is in my town.

On the other hand, I'm not worried. I'd completely finished one of the recalled jars of Peter Pan when that recall was announced a couple years ago, and I didn't die.
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What town is that? my dad is in north east ohio - hartville area.
 
Pardalis said:
So please tell me what in the name of jumping Jehosaphat does capitalism have anything to do with this virus?



So you don't know what you are talking about. Good.
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:rolleyes:
So saying anything agaisnt Capitalism is now a Anti American rant? LOL

So do you know what you are talking about? would be somehting new.
 
gumboot said:
....

Certainly widespread air travel makes it easier for a virus to spread, but it still doesn't even come close to the unique circumstances at the close of WWI.
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I wouldn't write off the variable of the 1918 virus in that 'unique circumstance' just yet. We're in a period of history where we think we have at least a handle on infectious disease, but it hasn't really been fully tested.
 
Pardalis said:
And what's it got to do with capitalism?

To remind you, this is Oliver's original statement, his objection about the use of vaccines:



The rationale escapes me. Attributing this to capitalism seems like a complete non-sequitur to me, not to mention his apparent ignorance of how we fight viruses.
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Well I wasn't defending Oliver in particular and certainly not the nonsense that either vaccines hurt people so profits can be made or someone put the virus out there in order to sell the cure. Those are ludicrous scenarios.


But I thought it was valid the large commercial pig farms aren't exactly known for concern about the communities they are located in. Profit over people is a big issue with the pig waste problems in the large operations. It is possible a sloppy operation will turn out to have put people at risk.

OTOH, it could also be people got the virus first and put the pigs at risk.
 
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Dymanic said:
Mexico City is one of the most densely populated cities in the world, and a fourth of the dwellings have no access to sewage facilities (according to Wikipedia; never been there myself; not interested in going any time soon).....
We are essentially in unexplored territory every time a novel virus comes along.
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Not to mention the uncontrolled smog, and I have been there.

There is always the potential for new variables to amplify a pandemic virus even if we've conquered some of the old variables.

Currently there is a worldwide pandemic of the USA 300 strain of MRSA (a common staph bacteria). It so happens a staph/flu coinfection is a deadly combination that appeared a couple years ago in increasing frequency. Staph/flu coinfection has contributed to increased flu deaths in the past.

We just don't know.
 
I think most if not all of these international cases of swine flu are just cases of regular flu. Just think about it, only around 1.000 cases in Mexico, and all these tourists are so unlucky to be around them and catch it? a handful of tourists from several countries, US, Spain, New Zealand, UK... If they all really caught it, the virus must´ve been very spread all around Mexico... not just 1000 cases...

I bet we´ll soon be hearing how they only had regular flu...
 
Abooga said:
I think most if not all of these international cases of swine flu are just cases of regular flu. Just think about it, only around 1.000 cases in Mexico, and all these tourists are so unlucky to be around them and catch it? a handful of tourists from several countries, US, Spain, New Zealand, UK... If they all really caught it, the virus must´ve been very spread all around Mexico... not just 1000 cases...

I bet we´ll soon be hearing how they only had regular flu...
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I think you are confusing some terms here.

Swine flu may be a misnomer. But 'novel' virus strain is not and that is the difference between this flu strain and seasonal flu.

Seasonal flu circulates around the globe genetically drifting over time. So there is more of a turnover in the population of people who are immune and people who aren't. As people get infected and develop immunity, others are born and the virus changes. The result is there are usually some people in the population at any one time that are immune and others that aren't.

The reason it matters is every immune person acts as a dead end or road block to spread of the virus. It can't infect the next person.

A novel strain is a strain with more genetic changes than usual. This happens sometimes by random mutation but more often by reassortment. When that happens you can get a virus no one is immune to. Thus there are no firewalls. The infection spreads through the population unimpeded. That alone makes it worse.

If the death rate is 1%, it still matters how many people get it to give you the total number of deaths. So even an average flu death rate will be higher in total deaths if more people are infected.
 
skeptigirl said:
I think you are confusing some terms here.

Swine flu may be a misnomer. But 'novel' virus strain is not and that is the difference between this flu strain and seasonal flu.

Seasonal flu circulates around the globe genetically drifting over time. So there is more of a turnover in the population of people who are immune and people who aren't. As people get infected and develop immunity, others are born and the virus changes. The result is there are usually some people in the population at any one time that are immune and others that aren't.

The reason it matters is every immune person acts as a dead end or road block to spread of the virus. It can't infect the next person.

A novel strain is a strain with more genetic changes than usual. This happens sometimes by random mutation but more often by reassortment. When that happens you can get a virus no one is immune to. Thus there are no firewalls. The infection spreads through the population unimpeded. That alone makes it worse.

If the death rate is 1%, it still matters how many people get it to give you the total number of deaths. So even an average flu death rate will be higher in total deaths if more people are infected.
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What´s that got to do with what I said?

There are around 1.000 cases of this "novel" virus in the whole of Mexico (1.000 out of 110.000.000)

How likely is it that around 100 tourists (a couple in Spain, a dozen or so in the UK and New zealand etc.) manage to catch this virus?

Not very.
 
Abooga said:
I think most if not all of these international cases of swine flu are just cases of regular flu. Just think about it, only around 1.000 cases in Mexico, and all these tourists are so unlucky to be around them and catch it? a handful of tourists from several countries, US, Spain, New Zealand, UK... If they all really caught it, the virus must´ve been very spread all around Mexico... not just 1000 cases...
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Ha, I just made exactly that point elsewhere. I think probably 108 deaths from 20,000,000 cases just doesn't have the same impact.

Some of the tests have come back positive for swine flu among the internationals already, so it seems more likely to actually be a less virulent strain of influenza with a low percentage even seeking medical care for it, which has the effect of making nice scary numbers when you bring out the dead.
 
Undesired Walrus said:
I don't know enough about this case to state whether it will lead to a major outbreak or not (And if SARS or Bird Flu was anything to go by, this is likely to be another case of press paranoia), but it's not all that unlikely a case in the near future may lead to more deaths than in 1918 (40% of the world's population infected!).
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Repost from the other thread: We saw a huge concerted effort to prevent SARS from becoming what was feared to be the next large pandemic. I would think the same effort will be applied to this situation.

It is serious, it will probably be efficiently contained, and it will probably make it into some stupid list of "media scares" in the future...
 
The Atheist said:
Ha, I just made exactly that point elsewhere. I think probably 108 deaths from 20,000,000 cases just doesn't have the same impact.

Some of the tests have come back positive for swine flu among the internationals already, so it seems more likely to actually be a less virulent strain of influenza with a low percentage even seeking medical care for it, which has the effect of making nice scary numbers when you bring out the dead.
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Yes, that could be it. What´s obvious is that the way it´s being reported, the numbers don´t add up.
 
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, we'll simply say "No, no, it was intended for the Jews".

Yes, the suggestion was made in jest. :)
 
skeptigirl said:
I think you are confusing some terms here.

Swine flu may be a misnomer. But 'novel' virus strain is not and that is the difference between this flu strain and seasonal flu.

Seasonal flu circulates around the globe genetically drifting over time. So there is more of a turnover in the population of people who are immune and people who aren't. As people get infected and develop immunity, others are born and the virus changes. The result is there are usually some people in the population at any one time that are immune and others that aren't.

The reason it matters is every immune person acts as a dead end or road block to spread of the virus. It can't infect the next person.

A novel strain is a strain with more genetic changes than usual. This happens sometimes by random mutation but more often by reassortment. When that happens you can get a virus no one is immune to. Thus there are no firewalls. The infection spreads through the population unimpeded. That alone makes it worse.

If the death rate is 1%, it still matters how many people get it to give you the total number of deaths. So even an average flu death rate will be higher in total deaths if more people are infected.
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Abooga said:
What´s that got to do with what I said?

There are around 1.000 cases of this "novel" virus in the whole of Mexico (1.000 out of 110.000.000)

How likely is it that around 100 tourists (a couple in Spain, a dozen or so in the UK and New zealand etc.) manage to catch this virus?

Not very.
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You both make good points even though you are talking about different things.
 
Alt+F4 said:
Wasn't half the world supposed to be killed by the Avian Flu by now?
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It was but they haven't let us know yet

According to Michael Savage the virus may have been genetically produced by middle eastern terrorists and introduced into Mexico. Then the illegal aliens will bring the virus to America, He is refusing to eat in any restaurants with Latin Americans employees.
 
Abooga said:
What´s that got to do with what I said?

There are around 1.000 cases of this "novel" virus in the whole of Mexico (1.000 out of 110.000.000)

How likely is it that around 100 tourists (a couple in Spain, a dozen or so in the UK and New zealand etc.) manage to catch this virus?

Not very.
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My guess is the tourists did not all catch it in Mexico, but rather caught it from each other.

Also, the 1000 cases in Mexico may simply be confirmed cases due to severity. Someone feeling sick after a trip to any country is more likely to consult a doctor than someone who can't afford to skip a day of work for a doctor visit, or because the symptoms are weak at first.

So I think it's safe to say that the number is greater than 1000 actual cases, especially since the confirmed cases are spread across multiple states. I'm sure a virologist can offer a better explanation and prediction, though.
 
IMO this is another thing being blown way out of proportion in order to drum up ratings for the evening news shows. The families of the unfortunate few who have gotten it would not agree with me.
 
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