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US Declares Public Health Emergency Over Swine Flu
mallumax sends word from the NYTimes that US government officials today declared a public health emergency over increasing cases of the swine flu first seen in Mexico. Here is additional coverage from CNN. From the Times: "American health officials [say]... that they had confirmed 20 cases of the disease in the United States and expected to see more as investigators fan out to track down the path of the outbreak. Other governments around the world stepped up their response to the incipient outbreak, racing to contain the infection amid reports of potential new cases from New Zealand to Hong Kong to Spain, raising concerns about the potential for a global pandemic. The cases in US looked to be similar to the deadly strain of swine flu that has killed more than 80 people in Mexico and infected 1,300 more." Reader "The man who walks in the woods" sends a link to accounts emailed to the BBC from readers in Mexico. While these are anecdotal, they do paint a picture of a more serious situation than government announcements have indicated so far.
The flu kills thousands of people every year. Why does this one have a special name? I can't decide how scared to be. As if there were anything I could do about it anyways.
It would be easy to think that the government is just over-reacting to this swine flu, and they might be (that was my first impression), but it is better to over-react than to under-react and end up with a huge world-wide influenza epidemic such as occurred in 1918. Making the public slightly paranoid can help prevent the spread of the flu.
According to Google flutrends (http://www.google.org/flutrends), Flu activity is still LOW.
...Mexican swines!
Isn't 'swine' both singular and plural, like 'deer'?
So how long before we see a mashup of Google Maps and flu stats showing outbreak areas?
it may be 'disaster of the week' for you, but to those of us who can pay attention for more than 5 minutes will see the direct correlation between this and the 1918 epidemic that killed 50 million people world wide.
The 1918 flu was theorized to have started in Kansas around March 4th. By March 11th it was spread as far as New York City. In weeks, it had mutated into a more virulent strain that went on to kill more people than WWI had. It had killed an estimated 20 million people in 25 weeks, and that was without global air travel.
I hope that this is just a minor incident and a false alarm, but since it has already proven to be resistant to the first two of the four major flu anti-virals (the neuraminidase inhibitors - Tamiflu and Relenza are the ones that seem to be effective so far), that in and of itself is cause for concern.
And if 80+ dead in 1000+ cases worldwide so far(and they are mostly healthy and young) are not more than 'nervous hand wringing' to you, then you are a fool. Add to that, is the fact that it has spread globally in a few days, spreads person to person rather easily and the chances of finding patient zero in a place like Mexico is going to be near impossible, makes this appear to be something that is more than 'nervous hand wringing by the talking heads'
Don't rush me, Sonny. You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.
Mexico hovers on martial law and the US declares emergency. Government responses will be increasingly strong before they admit the truth of the zombie uprising.
Swine flu, my butt. It's the Solanum virus and we won't know until it's too late to contain.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Sounds like the one thing you didn't do was to loosen the tin-foil hat a bit. You know, sometimes, Shit Happens. It's not always an Illuminati Conspiracy.
And no, it's not "just the flu". It is a little early but it is looking eerily like the beginning of pandemic spread (late season, high mortality rate among generally healthy, H1N1). It may not be much, but the easiest, safest, cheapest method of dealing with it is rapid isolation. Like closing borders.
It may well be jumping the gun a bit, but since we are not likely to get good quality epidemiological information for weeks to months, it makes sense to potentially overreact.
Work on your tin-foil breathing mask while you have time. You can paint it black and look like Darth Vader!
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Do all the normal prudent things like wash your hands plenty, try not to stand next to the guy coughing up a lung, etc. Keep up on the situation on the CDC's website, not on random places like Slashdot. The reason is that the Internet has a LOT of doomsdayers, if you haven't noticed. They are always after the next thing that's going to fuck us over. The one I remember most recently was when there were stories of cable cuts in mid east, doomsdayers said this meant the US was going to invade Iran in a couple days, Bush would declare marshal law, and the election would be suspended. Ya well, we all see how much of that happened.
So get your info from a reliable source. The CDC is interested in keeping people safe and stopping the spread of this (and all other) disease. They are also staffed with experts. People on random forums often have no idea what the fuck they are talking about, like to blow things up, and predict the end of the world every other month.
Only thing special to do maybe is make sure you've got flu food. By that I mean things like chicken noodle soup and such. If you get sick you probably aren't going to feel like shopping (and shouldn't go shopping since you don't want to spread your sickness) and you also aren't likely to feel like eating pizza and such.
Just to note... declaring a 'Public Health Emergency' sounds all kinds of doom&gloom-y, but doing so simply enables measures to be taken more quickly, more easily, etc.
"We are declaring today a public health emergency," Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said today at a White House news briefing. That declaration is "standard operating procedure," Napolitano said. "It is similar to what we do when we see a hurricane approaching a site. The hurricane might not actually hit but allows you to take a number of preparatory steps. We really don't know ultimately what the size or seriousness of this outbreak is going to be." - webmd.com
It's when the CDC starts issuing emergencies, quarantining local communities, ordering a halt to any and all traffic into / out of certain areas, etc. that you should start raising eyebrows.
"And if 80+ dead in 1000+ cases worldwide so far(and they are mostly healthy and young) are not more than 'nervous hand wringing' to you, then you are a fool."
Except, um, no-one knows how many people caught this flu and had no serious problems, just like the majority of people infected outside Mexico. For all we know a million people caught it, a thousand became seriously sick and eighty died.
American experience seems to show that only a small fraction of people are seriously sick, and Mexican experience seems to show that a small fraction of the seriously sick die. Trying to extrapolate those figures into Doomsday scenarios is silly at this point.
Umm, why are you asking? Are you planning on irridiating every one you might come in contact with? This is a respiratory virus - droplet transmission. Unless you're some sort of closet cannibal, I can't see why you are interested...
On second throught don't reply. I'm pretty sure I don't want to know....
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Sorry, I'm just not that worried about it. Perhaps I'm just oversaturated with TV News disasters that never actually effect midwest USA. You can assume this is the 1918 flue-redu and hide in your basement if you like. Myself, I'm going to go to work tomorrow like normal. The fact that it's spreading rapidly in Mexico city, which is known for poor sanitation and overcrowding does not surprise me. So far the reported survival rate looks decent, I'll take my chances. It's still a bit early to seal up the bomb shelter in my opinion.
Maybe if we didn't completely sterilize every conceivable surface in out packing houses and restaurants, sterilize foods in radiation and chemicals, and push people to drench their houses in Lysol every time somebody coughed, we either wouldn't have this problem, or it wouldn't be as bad as it is.
The problem today is that sanitization and sterilization of our restaurants and homes is that we are now exposed to FAR FEWER germs than in the past. When we kill germs with powerful disinfectants, we eliminate the chances of allowing our immune system to strengthen itself. I see commercials for cleaners that kiil 99.9% of bacteria, commercials for disinfectants aimed at parents using children as an excuse for sanitizing everything they touch so they don't get a cold.
The more we continue to push for stricter standards, and the increased sanitization of our homes, workplaces, and restaurants, the weaker our immune systems will get, and the more deadly previously harmless germs will become.
GERMS ARE GOOD!
All I can say is "I told you so.".
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
the flu can still spread in warm climates, flu in fact is a regular feature of the tropics. but in warm weather you will see more close contact cases, cases among families, cases among office workers cube-to-cube. long term close contact being needed in the warmth. not random walking-by-on-the-sidewalk transmission, like you will get with cold weather
the whole point is not that the summer months will destroy or prevent the swine flu. the problem is it will still spread, but at a lower background noise rate. seeping all around in tiny little clusters
then the weather gets cold, and the flu will suddenly leap out of all of these tiny below the radar clusters, and expand exponentially in a matter of days, and suddenly be everywhere at the same time, with falling temperatures
seriously, worry come october for us in the northern mid-latitudes
or, alternately, if you are in the far north (in a populated area, rare), or in the soutern hemisphere as your winter approaches, worry now
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
IANAV (I am not a virologist) but...
As at least 15 out of 20 confirmed swine flu deaths were reported in Mexico City my guess is that is primarily due to population concentration and the lack of proper health care.
When you put 6000 people per square kilometer at one place you will probably have problems with epidemics and with providing proper and timely health care.
Add to that the fact US has about 4 times the per capita GDP of Mexico and about 13-14 times bigger GDP in total - my guess is that that should at least indicate the potential reason for the higher fatality in Mexico.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Um, no. Irony is when the opposite of the expected happens. Or an incongruency between the actual and expected result. That's just a funny cooincidence. Sorry to be a PITA :(
not with a bang, but with a whimper.
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