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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.
Yes, this flu is different. It is primarily killing young healthy adults. It looks to work the same way as the 1918 flu, killing those with the healthiest immune systems through the "cytokine storm".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:W_curve.png
I caught a few minutes of a press conference on CNN. Janet Napolitano, the Secretary of Homeland Security started it by saying something to the effect of 'this makes things sound worse than they are, but it allows us to activate public health resources'.
So perhaps the vocabulary is poor, but the reaction doesn't really resemble crying wolf.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Here's a question for somebody who knows the immune system:
Apparently this flu is so deadly because the immune system overreacts (cytokine storm) and destroys more than just the virus. Would intentionally weakening the immune system then increase ones chances of surviving? From what I've read, it seems both sugar and alcohol would have an immediate weakening effect on the immune system. So to increase the chance of survival if infected: lots of sugar and alcohol?
I live in New Zealand, which now has (as far as we can test) a Swine flu outbreak among kids returning from a Mexican school trip. Basically, it seems under control due to competent home hygiene, plus intense medical supervision. So, yes it does spread fast. And for those of you who can't find New Zealand on a map. Don't worry about that, a pandemic will find you.
What is really valuable about this is that it looks to be a fairly safe, almost ideal model for the real thing. A test for how competently a pandemic is managed locally. Listening to the news this morning (we are 16 hours ahead of the US), our authorities seem to have concentrated all their efforts in micromanaging the school threat, and ignored contamination of everyone else on the plane. Provided the officials stay inside the school, they should be safe.
Personally, I'd prefer a bunch of veterinarians running it who aren't allowed to shoot and burn. At least they have a holistic approach. However, I'm getting old and cynical. Younger people seem to prefer touchy-feely sorry-about-the-megadeaths administrators.
The flu kills thousands of people every year. Why does this one have a special name?.
Flu usually kills the very old and the very young. From what I have read, this one is different; it kills young and healthy persons, a segment that rarely dies from normal flu. The so called Spanish Flu (or Grippe) from around the first world war had a very similar fatality pattern. Since that pandemic attack killed at least 50 million people around the world it is clear that this new flu must be taken very, very seriously. There doesn't seem to be that much hard evidence around regarding the symptoms though; does it attack the lungs in the same way as the Grippe? It appears that the Grippe turned peoples own immune system against themselves which is why young healthy persons with good immune systems died in such large numbers and often so violently fast.
From what little info I have seen it appears that this swine Flu attack and kills some young and healthy persons, while other victims have very mild symptoms; that is the exact same pattern as the first major wave of the Grippe. According to some researchers this attack pattern caused the Grippe virus strain to be refined to the extremely deadly strain it was when it attacked again. Some victims died within an hour of having the first symptoms, and people would literally drop dead without warning while walking in the streets, pupils in classrooms would suddenly fall over their desk dead.
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Regards
Honestly people, it's the flu. We get a new one every year... sometimes several. I stopped getting flu shots decades ago and have been a LOT healthier since that time...
I really hope this doesn't prove to be the "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame" comment of pandemics.
From what I am reading, this virus is distinct in that there is no natural immunity in humans (unless, I assume, you recover), that it kills those with the strongest immune systems, and the number of known cases are doubling daily. And that it's pretty lethal, at least in Mexico. Some of the estimates by doctors in the linked story says that Mexico is underrepresenting the death toll by 10x.
Comments like "The truth is that anti-viral treatments and vaccines are not expected to have any effect, even at high doses" do not give me too much comfort either.
As I understand it, viruses with a higher rate of mortality burn themselves out very quickly. If this is just lethal enough that most infected people survive long enough to pass it on... but a significant number of those infected experience the cytokine storm... we could all be in serious trouble. I'd rather have the CDC and WHO overreact than under-react.
I guess we'll know soon (and that's assuming there's no dramatic mutation... there were three major waves of the 1918 pandemic as it came sweeping through the population and picked off the survivors of the previous one. The 2nd I think was the most lethal.)
W
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This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
stay the f*** home from work/school when you are sick, that would help
If only it were that easy. Even when I'm ill with things that make me unable to work (such as vomiting every half hour) employers tend to be unsympathetic, even more so when its something where you feel miserable and are sick with something contagious (such as normal influenza), making staying at home little more than a dream. Schools aren't much better and sometimes much worse. For example, school nurses usually have a set fever number where they will not send kids home if they don't reach it (such as 100 degrees) and so even when you are visibly sick, feeling miserable but yet can't hit the magical 100 degree fever, you are stuck in school transmitting whatever you have. And most parents send students to school even with high fevers, when kids are visibly sick, and even when they are vomiting.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Most of the deaths in Mexico were young adults. From the WSJ:
"Mexican health authorities said the death toll from the new strain of A/H1N1 swine flu remains at 20, and they are continuing to investigate whether more than 1,000 others were infected with the mysterious bug, which attacked in three geographically diverse areas of the country and is taking its heaviest toll in young adults."
Imagine it's scary for you too. Because it is.
Sorry to point out the obvious here but Mexico City is located more then a mile above sea level (higher elevation then Denver). Could environmental factors be the reason that people are dying of respritory complications in Mexico but, so far, this doesn't seem worse then other flu outbreaks. And keep in mind folks, in a normal flu season around 30,000 people (out of a population of 340,000,000) die of the flu in the US.
I get flu shots, they are a cocktail of bits to stimulate your immune system to resist the predicted common viruses of the year. This? It's new. Not covered.
That is absolutely NOT TRUE. Flu is considered an unstable virus. Its outer outer sheath of proteins are different all the time. BUT, this particular strain had to get its input from a number of different strains. It is POSSIBLE that a few of the genes that it picked up were from ones that CDC (and other experts) picked to be the likely strains. IOW, it is POSSIBLE that it has proteins from what was the suspected strains. At this time, it is not known EXACTLY what strains this came from.
What is more interesting, is this one has elements of Avian flu. It is possible that doing a vaccine directly against it MAY be what causes the issues, since it is current suspected that an immune storm is causing the issues.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
There are first-hand reports that the number of fatalities reported publicly and the mortality rate are under-reported in the news. Emails to the BBC from doctors and others in Mexico tell a different story than we're getting from the Mexican government and the CDC- here are two of the most interesting:
I'm a specialist doctor in respiratory diseases and intensive care at the Mexican National Institute of Health. There is a severe emergency over the swine flu here. More and more patients are being admitted to the intensive care unit. Despite the heroic efforts of all staff (doctors, nurses, specialists, etc) patients continue to inevitably die. The truth is that anti-viral treatments and vaccines are not expected to have any effect, even at high doses. It is a great fear among the staff. The infection risk is very high among the doctors and health staff.
There is a sense of chaos in the other hospitals and we do not know what to do. Staff are starting to leave and many are opting to retire or apply for holidays. The truth is that mortality is even higher than what is being reported by the authorities, at least in the hospital where I work it. It is killing three to four patients daily, and it has been going on for more than three weeks. It is a shame and there is great fear here. Increasingly younger patients aged 20 to 30 years are dying before our helpless eyes and there is great sadness among health professionals here.
Antonio Chavez, Mexico City
I work as a resident doctor in one of the biggest hospitals in Mexico City and sadly, the situation is far from "under control". As a doctor, I realise that the media does not report the truth. Authorities distributed vaccines among all the medical personnel with no results, because two of my partners who worked in this hospital (interns) were killed by this new virus in less than six days even though they were vaccinated as all of us were. The official number of deaths is 20, nevertheless, the true number of victims are more than 200. I understand that we must avoid to panic, but telling the truth it might be better now to prevent and avoid more deaths.
Yeny Gregorio Davila, Mexico City
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
I have a better suggestion: Beer Bread.
get a case of cheap beer and a couple of bags of cheap flour. doesn't even matter if it's self rising, but you'll get more of a traditional bread if it is.
Using the very simplest method, mix 3 cups of flour with a can of beer; don't stir it until smooth, just get the biggest lumps out.
put it in a backing container. I've used everything from breadpans to tinfoil bent to approximately the right shape and hot coals from a fire.
Oven at 375f for about an hour.
Eat. freak out at how good it tastes, smells. Watch your friends drool uncontrollably at the smell.
it gets better if you it "properly", but as stated it's damned good.
Properly would be: add anything from 1 Tablespoon to a 1/2 cup sugar; type of sugar makes the taste highly variable, I like a little Turbinado ("Raw" sugar).
Butter. grease the pan with it. some people say pour some melted butter over the loaf when you 1st put it in, I wait until it looks like the top of the loaf is starting to split then pour about a 1/4 stick, melted, on top. it lets the bread continue to rise and makes the sides touching the pan get extremely tasty.
After you get jaded with the basic product, you can try changes; different beers make different tastes, (Guinness Beer Bread is unbelievable), you can add cheese to the dough, nuts, whole wheat flour, fruit, etc. Makes really interesting cinnamon rolls.
Looking at things in the context of the thread, put your flour in a airtight container in a cool place, and it'll last forever; put your beer alongside of it, the same. and you can always find other used for the beer in the post-flu apocalypse world. and making your own beer isn't hard, making your own flour just involves an extreme amount of hard work, which you can trick someone else into doing in exchange for beer.
In conclusion, here are suggestions for A Smart Geeks cheap survivalist Shopping list for Monday, April 27th, 2009: 2 SKS rifles, 1000 rounds of ammunition, 20+ lbs of flour, 8+ cases of beer, lots of multivitamins, a variety of over-the-counter drugs, Toilet Paper, feminine hygiene products (yes, even if you are a single guy. The female Mutant survivors will think you are a god) and waterproof containers for everything. If you live near a Military base, hit a surplus store and buy a couple of cases of MRE.
How was THAT for a weird post?
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
Society is in many ways a lot more vulnerable now then it was in 1918 - its reliant on much more formal structures then it used to - if a disease manages to frighten people (it doesn't even have to kill many for this to occur) into not rocking up to work there will be a massive breakdown very quickly.
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly