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New Flu Strain Appears In the US and Mexico
Combat Wombat writes with this excerpt from Reuters:
"A strain of flu never seen before has killed up to 60 people in Mexico and also appeared in the United States, where eight people were infected but recovered, health officials said on Friday. Mexico's government said at least 20 people have died of the flu and it may also be responsible for 40 other deaths. [The government] shut down schools and canceled major public events in Mexico City to try to prevent more deaths in the sprawling, overcrowded capital. ... Close analysis showed the disease is a mixture of swine, human and avian viruses, according to the CDC. Humans can occasionally catch swine flu from pigs but rarely have they been known to pass it on to other people. Mexico reported 1,004 suspected cases of the new virus, including four possible cases in Mexicali on the border with California.
Before this spreads unnecessarily, this would be an ideal time to limit air flight in and out of the Americas.
We as a species are putting everyone at risk by allowing unlimited, unrestricted, near-instantaneous travel from point to point on the globe.
Shipping cargo can continue of course; if the crew get sick en route, they can always be quarantined off the coast of wherever they arrive.
...as this article learns us.
Makes you indeed wonder !
Mental note: beware of Replikins bringing medicine to lethal flu.
I have to disagree there, the Gunslinger ending was right.....what did you expect, Roland to enter the tower and find some mystical Nirvana? I don't see how it could have been much better, if he'd given up finding the tower it would have been worse, if he'd gone in but not shown what happened inside it would have been worse. What exactly could he find inside the tower that would have given him fulfillment? Absolutely nothing. He was chasing a false dream, and he will continue to chase it until he learns to chase something real instead. That's how life works: if you chase illusions, you're never going to catch them.
Qxe4
The chances of these proteins from bird, avian flu combining with a swine retro virus that is easily transmittable is astronomical.
Unless of course, it really isn't about chance, and it was engineered that way. Taking the best from Avian flu, and Swine Flu and combining them into a easily transmittable vector for human consumption.
I would bet for example it already has spread world wide.
The higher its kill rate the more skeptical I will believe this is a natural borne virus which came about through natural events.
We will have to wait for the death toll statistics for the outbreak. But if it is over 30% death it has to be human engineered. Even the Black Death required highly specific environmental factors to come about. Since humans control our environment by a factor of a 1000 more than the dark ages, any virus would have to be thousands of times more virulent.
On top of that it is spread through casual contact?
Sure, its TOTALLY natural.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
Yeah, I was curious about that, too. I don't think it's intentional though. What speaks for a random event or a lab accident as opposed to some intentional act of bio-terrorism is the fact that it's survivable, and not resistant to drugs.
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
From a cursory look around the Internet today, there is a lot of advice on what kind of face mask to wear to help cut down on transmission. Apparently even simple surgical masks are good enough for the flu virus (although better version are also available).
This post is more about eye protection: Next to the nose and mouth, your eyes are the next best method for transmission. Are thick, wrap-around glasses or goggles a good idea? I know that people in Japan with allergies have such equipment. Can anyone provide links to them or their medical efficacy?
For a few year ago it was a huge ethical question about growing human organs in pig for transplantation in case of accidents.
The proponents focused upon the saving of lives in the moment
The opposition focused upon the threats this could cause for the entire human race as viruses suddenly could pass the gap and flood us with waves of new diseases we have never known before.
Not that I know if this is due to growing human organs inside porks, but expect many new deadly deceases such as this as animal grown parts turn up inside humans.
The experts are saying that this is highly unusual and they have never seen anything like it. Yes, flu mutates, but it usually doesn't mutate simultaneously with so many differing vectors.
That's the odd and suspicious part that people are noting. I just listened to the WHO Q and A press conference and they are taking this pretty seriously, as in emergency mode, a step below full panic mode. You just might want to not be so instantly dismissive and blase about it. If you haven't noticed, the Mexican authorities have canceled all large public events, which they never do. Flu happens all the time, it is seasonal, they don't cancel big events over it, until now. They are on the scene and seem to be a little more alarmed over it than your dismissive "oh bother, happens all the time, p'shaw, plain old flu" internet armchair medical opinion. This is not a usual form of normal mutated flu.
When people start making comments like this, I can't help wondering if this was someone's science project that got out into the open instead of a strain that occurred naturally.
Yeah, that or an effort from Gilead Sciences to increase sales of Tamiflu.
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
I thought the reason it was so bad is because many of the dead are young adults. That's one of the milestones of a really dangerous pandemic, right?
My neighbours already got one in mail...
Ezekiel 23:20
Stephen King has a thing for letting people die in ways he considers natural. He also likes to mess with his reader's emotions, and bother them a bit, like when Eddie died, it went from happy hugging family, to dead man. Total emotion switch there. In the book it even had a picture of them all hugging. And it was something that could in fact have happened, so you can't escape from the uncomfortable nature of it by saying, "oh, that wouldn't happen." It's an uncomfortable reality that you need to deal with. King likes uncomfortable realities.
On the other hand, I'm kind of interested in your ideas. How would you have ended it differently?
Qxe4
Baxter nearby when this took place, me wonders????
sorry, direct link
http://www.google.org/flutrends/
Living in Chile
I think the chances of this being bio-terrorism just clicked up a notch: According to this article:
The first case was seen in Mexico on April 13. The outbreak coincided with the President Barack Obama's trip to Mexico City on April 16. Obama was received at Mexico's anthropology museum in Mexico City by Felipe Solis, a distinguished archeologist who died the following day from symptoms similar to flu, Reforma newspaper reported. The newspaper didn't confirm if Solis had swine flu or not.
Well as weird as it seems some doctors in Mexico are claiming
they are under reporting the death toll to prevent panic.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/8018428.stm
They are saying over 200 at this point, and if that is true
that would put this more on par with the 1918 pandemic.
Let's hope it is not true...
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
Unfortunately this isnt a typical flue, and if it's the same killing method as with the Asian bird flue (also a mix of human, bird and swine afaik), it causes sepsis.
The reason people with good immune systems died was because their immune response triggered a massive death of flue virus in the blood, causing blood poisoning. Not a whole lot of good PP&D will do you.
Added bonus: did someone use any of those antivirals lately to fight the common cold? You're in for a treat: good chance they wont work on you as well as they should when the flue gets here.
Oh, that immune system going nuts thing is called a Cytokine Storm.(Although it sounds more like a video game I would have played as a kid.) More on that for anybody who cares http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytokine_storm
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.