Slashdot Mirror
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.
Q - What illness caused the pig to fly?
A - Swine flu.
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.
...Mexican swines!
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I can't wait till someone comes in my pharmacy and coughs this all over me. /pharmacist
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.
Once again, the viagra + hooker idea seems a sensible plan.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
What's next - flying pig flu?
Why is it that every time I hear "swine flu", I think this is nothing more than a really old rerun of the muppet show....maybe Gonzo will show up and save us all!
The end is near!
I have to return some videotapes...
So how long before we see a mashup of Google Maps and flu stats showing outbreak areas?
OVER 60 MILLION GOT SERVED, Mexico, Friday (NNN) — A new strain of swine flu, H1N1, has killed up to 60 people in Mexico.
The virus is a mixture of swine, bird, human and computer viruses. Symptoms include fever, fatigue, lack of appetite, popup ads, coughing, sore throat, a slow connection and an urge to throw one's computer out of a high window. The disease is thought to have started as a Windows virus on 4chan, a CIA entrapment message board for online activists, and can spread using the current Windows 7 beta.
Center for Disease Control officials looked at their huge stockpiles of H5N1 bird flu vaccine and said, "... shit."
Citizens have panicked at the prospect of bacon being put into quarantine and substituted with some soy-based shit. "Damn that Conficker!" shouted R. MacDonald of San Bernardino, California. "Damn it all to Hell!"
"This comment from me looks photoshopped," said Bruce Schneier, an American computer security expert safely employed over in the UK. "I can tell by the pixels and having seen a lot of shops in my time. I suspect this is the work of a viral botnet spider agent replicating Trojan comments across news services until their functionality is completely destroyed. WHATEVER YOU, DO DON'T LOAD OR READ MY COMMENT. p.s.: I love you."
Insufferably smug Macintosh user Arty Phagge was sanguine. "We know how to use condoms. And I'm a vegetarian." The Free Software Foundation announced the launch of OpenSwine, a disease generation and detection kit available for all to use and develop in perpetuity.
Britain will be protected from the swine flu virus by comprehensive filtering of the British internet, shutting it down entirely as needed. "Would you want your husbands, your servants, accessing the Internet?" asked Home Secretary Jacqui Smith. "I put it to you that you would not."
http://rocknerd.co.uk
It has arrived. Evil people start moving toward Vegas. Good people will be found in Colorado.
Who has been talking to you? The Old Lady or the Walking Man?
Interestingly, it appears to be expressing more of the Avian flu, than the swine. In particular, all the deaths as of yesterday eve where ppl in 20-40 range. ONLY Avian had that characteristic. What has been interesting is the number of posts here in America that say that we should shut down all traffic to Mexico on south. Of course, many of these posts mention illegal aliens. Now, the question is, how many other nations are going to say that they want to shut down all traffic between all nations in the (north|central|south) Americas and themselves?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
And there I was wondering what to bring back from the US as a souvenir when I go there next week...
Summation 2
I've been taking double or triple dose liquid multivitamins and withstood several bugs around work and with wife. I just like the thought of using chemicals instead of chi.
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.
Making the public slightly paranoid can help prevent the spread of the flu.
You would get your resources wasted and your hospitals swarmed with everyone who feels a bit tired or has a cough.
And there is no better place to catch a disease than a crowded hospital.
Well... except maybe going for a swim in the local sewer.
From the TFA:
Officials said they had confirmed eight cases in New York, seven in California, two in Kansas, two in Texas and one in Ohio, and that the cases 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.
So far, there have been no deaths from swine flu in the United States, and only one of the people who tested positive for the disease has been hospitalized, officials said.
19 people out of 306 million found to have something like the disease that has killed 80 in Mexico.
1 of those 19 was actually kept in the hospital while others were sent home.
Also...
In the United States, the C.D.C. confirmed that eight students of a high school in Queens had been infected with swine flu, the first confirmed cases in New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at a news conference on Sunday. Mr. Bloomberg said that all of the cases had been mild and hospitals in the city had not seen more patients with severe lung infections.
.
.
About 100 students at St. Francis Preparatory School in Fresh Meadows, Queens, became sick in the last few days, and some family members have also taken ill. Mr. Bloomberg said the school would be closed on Monday, and that officials would then reassess whether to reopen the school.
Yes... those 8 cases are all from that school.
Note the numbers.
8 people actually sick. 100+ immediately think that they are going to die. 0 of them hospitalized.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
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.
Does food irradiation kill viruses? If so, does anyone here know the names of any companies that produce food irradiators?
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
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?
At this time, it is low. OTH, if the current vaccine does not work against it, then we are likely to see that trend change. And most likely this week.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Design that is.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
"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."
Specifically, it was Fort Riley, Kansas and it spread to Europe thanks to troops deployed for World War I, which is where it got nicknamed "Spanish flu". You mention global air travel but I submit that air travel doesn't involve sharing an entire ship full of passengers for a cross Atlantic trip that could take 8-9 days to several weeks.
YOU all are going to die. I'm moving to Madagascar.
"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.
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
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
...your ability to get laid if you get this as you inform your partner that you have the Pig Disease.
Just ensure you scrub your swine thoroughly before handling them.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
Now how many takers do I have who in spite of what I think and feel are angry and want to control me somehow?
Paranoid much?
Its not 2012...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It would be pronounced "shvine", actually.
ResidntGeek
Last I checked, people die in Madagascar same as everywhere else. :( Even those endangered species Douglas Adams went looking for.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
I'm scared, I'm moving to Madagascar before they close their ports.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
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.
recall that the spanish flu of 1918 came out in the summer, and was mild
http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/health-and-human-body/human-diseases/next-killer-flu.html
then the cold weather came, and it came down like a scythe. we will experience media hype for a month or two, the swine flu will be forgotten, then it will suddenly resurge like crazy in october. the reason is the flu virus actually survives better in the cold air than the warm air, and travels greater distances. the warm summer air will help us fight the flu, for now. there was science a few months ago that proved that:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7276447.stm
thats why flu is always a cold month thing
so the thing to do is not worry now, worry later. the warm weather will mitigate the flu. then we should all keep a very wary eye come october, that's when the swine flu will prove if it is a superkiller or not
one more concern:
the cytokine storm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytokine_storm
this explains why those who died of the spanish flu, and are dying of swine flu now, are young, healthy adults. perversely, the healthier you are, the more you will be prone to die of the swine flu: your body overreacts, like anaphylactic shock. less healthy immune systems mean you underreact, and your lungs aren't flooded to death by your won body. the very young, and the very old, they should be able to weather the swine flu. the worst case scenario (hopefully this just fizzles out like SARS), it is us in the prime of life, 25-45, who will bear the brunt of mortality when everyone gets it this fall, hospitals are swamped, and the tamiflu runs out. then you have children and elderly with no breadwinners to take care of them
prepare now, you have until fall until the scythe comes (hopefully, it won't, it could still fizzle out)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
People may be interested in the book The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague In History on the Spanish flu.
It mentions that these killer strains of flu are an anomaly in a virus that mutates rapidly, and so the general trend is for an outbreak to become less and less deadly as it continues (i.e., subsequent generations revert to the mean). Also, there were multiple strains in play at different times during the whole 1918-1920 crisis.
Checking Slashdot and finding this article at the top?
Right next to the poll, "How long do you expect to live?"
[End Of Line]
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....
so ... does this mean that young people should be given some
cyclosporin to temporarily weaken their immune systems?
thats why flu is always a cold month thing
so the thing to do is not worry now, worry later. the warm weather will mitigate the flu. then we should all keep a very wary eye come october, that's when the swine flu will prove if it is a superkiller or not
This got started in fairly warm Mexico City.
W
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This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Flying Spaghetti Monster Flu.
Fortunately, it's only spread through direct contact, so we should all be safe...for now.
You idiot, the common cold is Endemic.
I reject your reality and substitute my own.
Yeah, thought so, your immune system is healthy.
Some of us live in cities close to mexico, with a high hispanic population (Austin, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio). Houston's the second largest city in the US. If "only" 1000 people die of this, chances are, 70%+ will be on border states. The neighborhood I live in, near downtown dallas is almost 50% hispanic, and many of them go home at least once a month to mexico to visit family. You might recall, Hong Kong is an island, and most of the people passing through there hardly leave the airport.
moox. for a new generation.
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
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.
And while you suffer through allergy season, I'm enjoying it thanks to antihistamines!
(FYI, you might want to refrain from admitting to boneheaded behavior when trying to justify future points.)
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.
I'm a specialist doctor in respiratory diseases and intensive care at the Mexican National Institute of Health. Staff are starting to leave and many are opting to retire or apply for holidays. It is killing three to four patients daily, and it has been going on for more than three weeks.
I am a doctor and I work in the State of Mexico. We doctors knew this was happening a week before the alert was issued and were told to get vaccinated.
In the capital of my state, Oaxaca, there is a hospital closed because of a death related to the porcine influenza. Many friends working in hospitals or related fields say that the situation is really bad, they are talking about 19 people dead in Oaxaca, including a doctor and a nurse. They say they got shots but they were told not to talk about the real situation.
Two of my friends at work are sick, they were sick for a couple of days, they went to the hospital and they sent them back to work. The doctor told them it was just a flu until Friday when the alarm was spread, then they were allowed to go home. I work in a call centre and I'm worried because there are no windows in the building so it cannot be ventilated and around 400 people work there. We all have talked to our supervisor but no one has done anything not even sterilise or disinfect the area. We will be sick soon and, well, do the math - 400 can infect at least another two per day.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Stock in Anheuser-Busch is no longer available
This is a respiratory virus. It is not transmitted via food. You can eat that pig. Just don't kiss it.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I think this will be contained much like bird flu was. Right now though there is fair bit of hysteria being whipped up about this by the media. I have not heard much professionals calming things down. If it is really that dangerous, then they better give us all vaccines.
http://www.natural-healing-for-all.com/
So those cases in Kansas don't count as Midwest? And I am not hiding in my basement... I just pointed out some similarities between the two events. I am pretty sure this not going to be huge, but it is a wake up call.
Don't rush me, Sonny. You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.
Somebody [Cough] hand me Mod Points! [Cough] [Sneeze] [Cough] [Cough]... Thanks, I'll be dying here all wee... [Cough] [Sneeze] [Cough] [Retch]
sig? Oh, that sig...
Guess we'll just have to wait to see how the thing plays out. If it's as bad as the 1918 bug, I doubt if there is a heck of a lot we can do to slow it down. I just don't see how fanning the flames of hysteria (as I see on the news) is going to help much. Maybe I'm watching the wrong channels, but I'm not seeing them mention survival rates, just body count and a color coded map of suspected incidents that narrow it all the way down to the STATE level. Just my opinion, and hell, I'm an IT guy, so that counts for bunk :
Would you really deny entry to millions of people that both yearn for a better way of life and are escaping certain death in their country?
Come on, we're better than that, aren't we?
Besides, the resl solution to the immigration problem is when Mexico has a higher standard of living than the USA does. Then they will just have to go back for work.
At this time, it is low. OTH, if the current vaccine does not work against it, then we are likely to see that trend change. And most likely this week.
Vaccine? 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.
Where's the Kaboom?
There's supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom.
WHO said no such thing in any of those incidents. Only the voices in your head are saying this. WHO has simply said that it is a public health emergency of international concern with the potential for a pandemic. Cases have now been reported in several countries, and it has killed some young, otherwise healthy people so it is a no brainer that it bears watching, and giving public health officials around the world a heads up is a reasonable precaution. No one has said you need to be quarantined, take anti-virals, or be vaccinated. All they've said so far is "Hey, if you are a health care provider keep an eye out for this."
I despair for my species since so many of us seem incapable of rationally responding to mild, reasonably stated warnings. We seem to dismiss them out of hand, or exaggerate them into "OMG, it's the end of the world as we know it.".
My season used to be anywhere from 4 to 5 months in duration. It is now 1 week. There is nothing "wrong" with suffering a little. When faced between that and being chemically addicted to something, I'll endure it. If, on the other hand, refusing to take medicines made no change in the duration of the season, I wouldn't have arrived at the conclusion that it is probably better to endure a little to become more normal for a lot longer, naturally.
Antihistamines have side-effects that I do not find better than going without. And frankly, they are only effective for short periods of time before one has to rotate to another one. All the while, there is still the intermittent suffering that occurs throughout when the drugs wear off. It's far from boneheaded to see the whole problem for what it is, weigh the benefits of each and arrive at a conclusion that is not not only far cheaper and more natural, but the net decrease in suffering is far better. 4 months intermittent suffering versus 1 week... and frankly, this year hasn't done much of anything to me and the trees in my area have already completed their cycles which is what does it to me the most. Could it be that I have actually conquered allergies entirely?
Yes, but this story broke mostly over the weekend. Interest is going to start climbing fast on Monday.
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.
Right, but those are steady, well established ways of dying. This is new and has the potential to increase. There isn't much more the government can do to dramatically change those death rates in a short period of time. It can prevent a new form of death from becoming worse. So that's what its doing.
Think of it this way: If someone in your family started to gamble compulsively, would you wait until they were spending more money than your mortgage? Or would you try and stop it before it got to that point?
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Because the notions of "alive" and "not alive" are fuzzy human definitions only partially based in distinctive underlying natural phenomena. Key attributes frequently assigned to living things are metabolism and reproduction. Viruses reproduce, but in some sense have no metabolism. Historically, folks have gone back and forth over the years on whether both attributes are needed or only one. Eventually most folks realize they are arguing over a ambiguous border, and give it up.
In the context at hand it make a lot more sense to think of viruses as living. They reproduce, and are transmissible, which make an outbreak of a contagious virus look pretty much like an outbreak of a contagious bacteria, as opposed to a mass poisoning by a toxin.
You HAVE to be kidding. WHO, CDC and other health agencies are stepping up concerns and take appropriate actions against this. As I said, you need to be CONCERNED, but it does no good to be afraid of it. How concerned? Well, if you live in cities where it has popped up, then yes, you may wish to think about working out of home. As I mention, this bug is killing those who are healthy AND in the prime of their lives. Look around at the posters here. Do you really think that they are under 5, or old and decrepit? 98-99% here will be between 15-60. That means that just about EVERYBODY here would be a pretty good target if this bug is in their location.
Just because you have mod points does not mean that you should not think about what you are doing. Hopefully, the meta modders nail you for being a fool.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
What media sources do you use? I see it mentioned in the news (NY Times and various online sources) probably at least once a week.
Which is strange, as change is news. 'People still dying of obesity, just like last week/month/year' is not.
Anyone else having W.o.W. flashbacks now?
Whatever you do, do NOT cover your mouth with your hand unless you intend to wash it immediately afterward. Using kleenex is equally ineffective, since all that junk seeps right through to the hands anyway. The CDC recommends using the sleeve of your shirt - sneezing and coughing into the sleeve right at the elbow joint. This minimizes the chance of spreading all the crap that comes out of your nose and mouth at 80-100 MPH.
(Tyler Cowen is economist who co-writes Marginal Revolution, an economics blog (among other things).
Wash your hands.
Who is the Surgeon General? Why can't Obama's advisers advise him of a good Surgeon General nominee, who then can advise the President about a health emergency?
i think anyone who catches the milder form now will have resistance come wintertime
additionally, the health system will be well-prepared and well-stocked to treat you if you catch a severe case this summer
but come winter, when everyone and their uncle gets this, medicine supplies will dwindle and the health system will be swamped, resulting in deaths due to inundated personnel and infrastructure and supplies
catch it now, or catch it next summer
don't catch it this coming winter, when everyone will be catching it
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The CDC actually advises to use a tissue and throw away as a preference, and the sleeve only if you don't have tissues available.
"Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Throw the tissue in the trash after you use it. "
See: http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/swineflu_you.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/whatsnew.htm?s_cid=tw_epr_68 http://twitter.com/CDCemergency
CDC page pasted into comment:
What is swine flu?
Swine Influenza (swine flu) is a respiratory disease of pigs caused by type A influenza viruses that causes regular outbreaks in pigs. People do not normally get swine flu, but human infections can and do happen. Swine flu viruses have been reported to spread from person-to-person, but in the past, this transmission was limited and not sustained beyond three people.
Are there human infections with swine flu in the U.S.?
In late March and early April 2009, cases of human infection with swine influenza A (H1N1) viruses were first reported in Southern California and near San Antonio, Texas. Other U.S. states have reported cases of swine flu infection in humans and cases have been reported internationally as well. An updated case count of confirmed swine flu infections in the United States is kept at http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/investigation.htm CDC and local and state health agencies are working together to investigate this situation.
Is this swine flu virus contagious?
CDC has determined that this swine influenza A (H1N1) virus is contagious and is spreading from human to human. However, at this time, it not known how easily the virus spreads between people.
What are the signs and symptoms of swine flu in people?
The symptoms of swine flu in people are similar to the symptoms of regular human flu and include fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue. Some people have reported diarrhea and vomiting associated with swine flu. In the past, severe illness (pneumonia and respiratory failure) and deaths have been reported with swine flu infection in people. Like seasonal flu, swine flu may cause a worsening of underlying chronic medical conditions.
How does swine flu spread?
Spread of this swine influenza A (H1N1) virus is thought to be happening in the same way that seasonal flu spreads. Flu viruses are spread mainly from person to person through coughing or sneezing of people with influenza. Sometimes people may become infected by touching something with flu viruses on it and then touching their mouth or nose.
How can someone with the flu infect someone else?
Infected people may be able to infect others beginning 1 day before symptoms develop and up to 7 or more days after becoming sick. That means that you may be able to pass on the flu to someone else before you know you are sick, as well as while you are sick.
What should I do to keep from getting the flu?
First and most important: wash your hands. Try to stay in good general health. Get plenty of sleep, be physically active, manage your stress, drink plenty of fluids, and eat nutritious food. Try not touch surfaces that may be contaminated with the flu virus. Avoid close contact with people who are sick.
Are there medicines to treat swine flu?
Yes. CDC recommends the use of oseltamivir or zanamivir for the treatment and/or prevention of infection with these swine influenza viruses. Antiviral drugs are prescription medicines (pills, liquid or an inhaler) that fight against the flu by keeping flu viruses from reproducing in your body. If you get sick, antiviral drugs can make your illness milder and make you feel better faster. They may also prevent serious flu complications. For treatment, antiviral drugs work best if started soon after getting sick (within 2 days of symptoms).
How long can an infected person spread swine
You mention global air travel but I submit that air travel doesn't involve sharing an entire ship full of passengers for a cross Atlantic trip that could take 8-9 days to several weeks.
And I submit that there are a hell of a lot more people taking planes now than there were taking ships back then.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
A google search for lice on mice
http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1GGLS_enUS311US311&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=lice+mice
Cheers...
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Isn't there an expensive series of pills with occasional lethal side effects I can take instead?
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
thank you
depends upon how much the strains "drift" i suppose. but the flu is so nasty and polymorphic we should probably be pessimistic
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
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
Thus far, I am not calling off my trip to Ecuador this summer. However, I AM following this closely. My suspicion is that this will be reasonably contained, but it is something to pay attention to.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Wrong.
The primary cause of death during the 1918 "Spanish Flu" was "Ctyokine storms" - basically overactivity of the immune system in reaction to the virus if had never seen before. That's why it killed the young and healthy (i.e those with string immune systems) rather than the young and old who are nomally flu victims. I'm not aware of anything modern healthcare could do for them.
Everyone on the planet has been exposed to *some* type of flu virus, but not this one - it's a very unusual mix of pig, avian and human influenza DNA which your immune system has never seen before. All flus are different, which is why sometimes your annual flu shot protects you (when they guess right about the strains that are likely to be around that year), and sometimes doesn't (like last year, when they guessed wrong).
that's funny someone noticed
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
At present, about 1300 cases are being reported in Mexico, and 80 deaths are being attributed to swine flu - mortality rate is about 6%. Now it's likely that more deaths than 80 were caused by swine flu, but since nobody was looking for swine flu, nobody attributed these deaths to it - which would increase the mortality rate. However, it is just as likely that many cases of swine flu have gone unreported (infected individuals not seeking medical care, etc.) - which would decrease the mortality rate. Overall, it probably balances out. The other important thing is the incidence rate - how many exposed people can be expected to become infected. I don't know what this is, neither does the CDC, etc. If it's low - we're probably going to be OK; if it's high - we could be screwed. Because . . . . pandemic flu comes in waves (incidence rate/mortality rate can vary highly from wave to wave - so the below is not really realistic, it's just an example).
If the incidence rate approaches 100%:
Wave 1 - 6% mortality rate = 94% of the infected survive; 94% of the original population survives;
Wave 2 - 6% mortality rate = 94% of the infected survive; 88.4% of the original population survive;
Wave 3 - 6% mortality rate = 94% of the infected survive; 83.1% of the original population survive;
Wave 4 - 6% mortality rate = 94% of the infected survive; 78.1% of the original population survive;
Wave 5 - 6% mortality rate = 94% of the infected survive; 73.4% of the original population survive;
Wave 6 - 6% mortality rate = 94% of the infected survive; 69% of the original population survive;
Wave 7 - 6% mortality rate = 94% of the infected survive; 64.8% of the original population survive;
Wave 8 - 6% mortality rate = 94% of the infected survive; 61% of the original population survive;
Wave 9 - 6% mortality rate = 94% of the infected survive; 57.3% of the original population survive;
Wave 10 - 6% mortality rate = 94% of the infected survive; 53.9% of the original population survive;
Get the picture?
I don't think endemic applies to the common cold, kthx
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
When you 'declare an emergency' no one thinks its mild. A warning would certainly be in order, or a watch perhaps, but emergency makes people think real and immediate threat to themselves and panic.
I will certainly be concerned about it when it spreads to more than a statistically irrelevant portion of the population as a whole. Until then, its nothing more than sensationalism, to which you have obviously bought into.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Thanks for the correction - I apparently confused this with a site called http://coughsafe.com./ However, the CDC also states, Then, clean your hands, and do so every time you cough or sneeze." The coughsafe.com website recommended the sleeve approach over any other, due at least in part, I imagine, to the fact that people are generally not going inconvenience themselves to wash their hands every time they cough or sneeze.
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
in fact, the flu season in the tropics coincides with the rainy seasons because every one stays indoors in close contact... btw i'm basing that comment on another comment in this thread:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1212387&cid=27725019
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
What panic? Certainly my neighborhood was pretty calm this afternoon? Did you actually read the WHO statement? What did WHO say that was so panic inducing? I'm going to wash my hands a bit more frequently, and if I develop flu symptoms I'll probably stay home from work when ordinarily I'd probably tough it out.
And is your version of statistically significant based on anything more then your gut feeling? There are objective measures of statistical significance, it's not just enough matter of enough sick people that it would impress a casual observer.
not with a bang, but with a whimper.
This is a sig. It is like every other sig in the world, except that it is mine, and it is different.
The biological term for the migration of of something, say, SIV from Pan troglodytes to HIV in Homo sapiens or flu from swine to human, is zoonosis. In case you wanna sound smart in conversation tomorrow at work.
But is there ever a natural immunity in humans to a flu?
The longer this thing goes on, the more it looks like it might be a biological attack.
I find it interesting that the first case, in Cali, was supposedly a Chinese person, coming from China. Yet China hasn't had any known or reported cases yet (and they had a top general declare about 6 years ago that the US was going to be attacked by a bioweapon).
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
When these guys ramp up, there may be a great quick way of testing for any of these nasty flu variants.
They have a great test for the A/H5N1 Avian Flu right now. 100% sensitivity and specificity, which means no false positives. There's nothing else like this.. cool technology and FDA approved.
-- Robi
You missed a common usage in epidemiology:
This is the sense in which the common cold is endemic in human populations.
That's a lousy conspiracy theory; you didn't even work in black helicopters.
Also:
Who was the US president that signed the NAFTA agreement? Who was the president who signed the CAFTA agreement? Which party ran both houses of our Congress - when CAFTA was passed into law, and held open voting in the House for an hour and a half beyond the normal allotted time, in order to get the measure passed 217 to 215?
Not to say that the Democrats didn't do their part, but your knowledge of history - with respect to free trade at least - seems a bit deficient.
There's also the flu wiki. (Insert joke here about doing amateur genetic engineering on H1N1).
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
someone just sneezed in Mexico! Shut. Down. EVERYTHING.
The WHO stage remains at 3; the Federal phase remains at 0.
I'll worry when either or both of those numbers change.
http://www.pandemicflu.gov/plan/federal/fedresponsestages.html
http://www.pandemicflu.gov/
It is true:
Im a mexican, i live in Nuevo Leon, and what the papers and news say is probably only the 10% of the real.
Even the newspapers contradict themselves: They said that where no cases in my state...and in the next page, they said that were 10 cases...
Today they said that there were 1 dead....
An hour ago , the goverment announced that schools will be closed from tomorrow until new advice.
And in the center the things are ever worse...
A friend of mine lives in mexico city told me tha the situation is totally awry:
- No people in street
- only went outside for food, medicines, work
- all wearing masks
- people stopping to go to work
Taking account that our sanitary infrastructure is not the better and that the people here have the tendency to ignore what government says and that most of our cities tend to be overcrowded...
This not seems very well...
Im seriously thinking to get a van, gas, food, some stuff and some weapons(any) and secure a cabin in the mountains....just in case....
20-30 thousand deaths a year without a pandemic version of flu ...
So why don't we ramp up spending on solving flu all the time. It might save thousands of people EVERY year.
And have the side effect of creating infrastructure that might save even more when a pandemic hits..
Otherwise when it hits we take months to react and try at that point to ramp up production of vaccines and other meds.
Fixed that for you.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
courtesy of The Flying Fish Sailors, it's Flu Pandemic! everybody sing along on the chorus!
It was the Flu pandemic
And it swept the whole world wide
It caught soldiers and civilians
And they died, died, died!
Whether they're lying in the trenches
Or lying in their beds
Twenty million of them got it
And they're dead, dead, dead!
There was a soldier on the battleground in 1917
He turned there to his buddy with his face a ghastly green
He said "We made it both through Passchendaele, the Somme, and Flanders too
But now my number's up my lad for I've gone and caught the flu"
chorus
Well a nurse was in the hospital when Tommy was brought in
When he sneezed she caught a face full that was flying in the wind
She wrote a letter home to England to tell them of her plight
But the letter never got there 'cause the postman too had died
chorus
From the meadow-lands of Somerset and o'er the bounding main
To the shores of old Americay they sung the same refrain
Mothers, fathers, uncles and aunts as well as the odd nephew
Brothers and sisters and bosses and lovers were all got by the flu
chorus
Well a farmer out in China watched his family dropping down
And a businessman in Cairo hit the street without a sound
And an eager little Bolshevik in old Sevastopol
couldn't keep up his grinnin' at Lenin as Comrade Virus took its toll
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
> I think this will be contained much like bird flu was.
"Bird flu" hasn't happened yet. That virus has not yet acquired the ability to pass from human to human.
People have died from it though and if the authorities did not take the precautionary appropriate steps things could have got worse.
http://www.natural-healing-for-all.com/
But FluTrends just tracks looks for flu stuff on google. If large number of people start googling for flu stuff, looking for info about swine flu, won't that throw the numbers off by a large margin?
tHI
www.shortman.com.au - top shorted stocks on the ASX
Realistically (and cinically) the best hope for survival humanity has in case of a pandemic is if the virus kills quickly, thus limiting its own spread. Viruses tipically survive only 2 hours out in the open, but live as long as the host does, inside it. Humans moving around is THE number one problem that will either curb or facilitate the spread.
i ate crayons when i was a kid and now i have two braincells and the blue ones taste nicer
Personally, the whole H5N1 thing wasn't something I was going to get too worried about despite the news telling us day in and day out for months how it was the end of the world. But this one I am concerned about, why?
The whole bird flu thing was primarily theoretical, whilst some people died from flu they caught from contact with birds it never actually evolved into a strain that could easily be spread between humans. Whilst we should always be prepared for the theoretical, there seems little point the average person caring or worrying about it beyond having a breif awareness of the possibility of it happening.
This time, it's different, it's clearly not theoretical, this thing exists, it's in the field and it's affecting people.
I don't know why such a fuss was made about H5N1 for so long, whilst this thing went un-reported until it had already killed a ton of people. I can't help but feel the original H5N1 bird flu scare was somewhat of a manufactured scare, because whilst it was theoretically worrying, so are many other things, like nuclear war, but that doesn't mean we need to spend months on end reiterating to everyone why the should be worried. In a way it's good that the H5N1 scare educated people on the danger of pandemics but I still think it was overstated and took up a massively disproportionate amount of news coverage at the time and for the duration.
So the whole H5N1 scare was a blessing and a curse, a blessing because it raised awareness of pandemics and possibly assisted preparation for this (The UK government spent £500m on Tamiflu for the H5N1 scare - seemed a stupid move at the time, perhaps not so now) but it was also a curse in that it got many people worried for many months and took up a disproportionate amount of media coverage such that arguably more important events at the time were missed or poorly reported.
I'm just guessing but I think the famously abysmal air quality in Mexico City probably has something to do with the deadliness of this flu there. Isn't it a respiratory problem ultimately?
The high mortality in other cities has yet to materialise.
I'm hoping that in the long run we will maybe start taking air quality seriously as a result of this. Maybe even decide to stop relying on cars because we don't really need them in cities. (Unlike computer analogies)
On the other hand maybe we should all watch a tall stack of apocalyptic movies (The latest ones I saw were: the Happening, Blindness, The Day the Earth Stood Still, none were good - Blindness the only one worth considering) and freak ourselves out and get paranoid about our neighbours and immigrants. I'm sure that would be helpful.
Stupidity is its own reward.
Its there now.
In 1981 I was Reagan and I gave those guys all they were asking for, please mod the bullshit parent down. Thanks.
Hah! Not likely.
I've done MANY simulations, and Madagascar ALWAYS survives.
Ayjay on Fedang
Yes i would deny them if they were infected with all kinds of things we cant stop from spreading.
I would welcome those from other countries but how many can we take and shouldnt we be screening them to find out a little about them first?
There is a legal process to immigration for a reason. Its not to keep people out, its to keep certain people out.
When they're running across borders in the desert, they're breaking the law and disrespecting the country they want to be apart of.
Too many of them are criminal minded as well. Its no wonder they illegally enter the country.
The cynic in me is skeptical that the swine flu story broke the same day it was announced more torture pictures were being released.
Misdirection is one of the oldest tricks in the book.
If you you take a look at the detailed stats on the effected, only people in Mexico died, which could be attributed to lack of medical attention rather than a particularly virulent strain of swine flu. In mexico, roughly 1600 people were infected, roughly 100 died. However in the US, we've had ~100 confimed cases. Based on that data, we should expect ~10 deaths, but have had none so. far.
He was sooo close
We know (because of AIDS) that it is possible to craft viruses with very specific traits that attack very limited subsets of the population, and mostly ignore others. This one sounds like an equal-opportunity killer. It might be a deliberate attempt to cull the population on a very broad basis, since it seems likely to have exactly that effect, but I doubt very highly that it was designed by one specific nation-state to target the members of another.
Nonaggression works!
and spelled "schwein".
Yeah, that or Greenland... I could never get my pandemic to reach those two countries unless it started there...
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted." -Groucho Marx
its until proven to NOT be the disaster of the week ala:
..whatever,
west nile
SARS
avian flu
monkey pox
default response is: intarwebz overblown doomsday disaster of the week response in effect. Meh.
if you are in the far north (in a populated area, rare), or in the soutern hemisphere as your winter approaches, worry now.
Actually the article you quoted says "at temperatures slightly above freezing" so the optimal temperature range is presumably ~0-16C. So, speaking as a resident of the somewhat 'far north' (for North America at least, less so for Europe) this might be less of an issue since our winters are well below 0 (it is usually -10 to -30C).
They've already closed their borders.
Mmmm.. Donuts
the spanish flu irony inquisition!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Right, except for the free trade stuff like CAFTA, which was signed in 2005 - under a Republican president and Congress. The truth of the matter is that corporatists have largely overtaken economic policy in America, and it doesn't much matter which party is running things.
Especially not when they realize that this is to prevent spreading their germs to others, not to protect themselves from infection.
Right, except for the free trade stuff like CAFTA, which was signed in 2005 - under a Republican president and Congress. The truth of the matter is that corporatists have largely overtaken economic policy in America, and it doesn't much matter which party is running things.
No, no... I don't disagree with this at all. I should have said -since 1990s- thing. And, its not even that corporatists that dominate. I'm sure GM would much rather not have to fight to stay alive in North American will South Korea riots at even the prospect of being required to allow American cars in. It's globalists and an investment class that are driving all of this. Even the corporations are being pushed into it by the banks.
This is my sig.
CNN reports that President Obama said Monday that the swine flu outbreak is a 'cause for concern and requires a heightened state of alert,' but is not a 'cause for alarm.' I for one agree with him. No one has died in the US from swine flu yet the media is portraying it as a major disaster. How is this any worse than the regular influenza that causes approximately 36,000 deaths and more than 200,000 hospitalizations every year in America?
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
So I guess if this really becomes a serious outbreak, those living in big cities should be the most affected.
I'm a 25 year old healthy male and I live near an airport in the city of Sao Paulo (which is in Brazil, pretty close to Mexico). With a population of 11 million people. Should I worry?
I'd be really suspicious of this message. First off, I would have expected any such message to circulate in the US before Europe, as we have much closer ties with Mexico. Secondly, it seems to be designed specifically to cause panic. Lastly, it seems to be using British spellings. Damn near every Mexican who has learned English would have leared the US variety, and thus would have used US spellings.
This looks to me more like a message generated in England specifically to scare people.
http://www.pandemicflu.gov/PLAN/PDF/GUIDE.PDF
This one seems to have been prepared in response to the avian flu hysteria of a few years ago. But the basic tips on how to prepare and protect yourself and your friends and family are the same.
If you do nothing else, *Wash Your Hands!* thanks!
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
Those comments are from the BBC page linked in the summary. I did cherry-pick the best parts of the best comments, but they are all there. It is not a single "message" as you say, but portions of messages from five different people that the BBC has (presumably) sourced before quoting.
Perhaps they are using British spellings because they were translated, or because they are British ex-pats, or they are Mexicans who read the BBC, or the BBC has a spell-checker that automatically replaces American spellings with British ones (okay that was a joke).
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
For the last time, that was a work of fiction. FICTION. As in, not real. There ARE no black people in Nebraska.
Whenever flu is discussed in the context of a pandemic outbreak, everyone goes back to the 1918 pandemic and acts as if that is the most recent pandemic. There have been TWO pandemic outbreaks of flu since 1918. One in 1957-58 and another in 1968-69.
.75-1 million
Death tolls for the pandemics:
1918-20 40 million
1957-58 1-1.5 million
1968-69
Now how were the latter two different from the first? Well, the first occurred right on the end of WWI and for all intents and purposes before the advent of modern medicine (which I date to the discovery of penicillin, although one might instead choose the development of sulfa drugs).
Despite the repeated attempts to drum up mass hysteria by referencing the 1918 death toll in stories on flu outbreaks, I don't believe it is justified. It is appropriate for government agencies to "gameplan" for the long shot case that we have a recurrence of 1918 death tolls. However, it is irresponsible of the media to treat that as anything more than a remote possibility.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Right, but those are steady, well established ways of dying.
True, but...
There isn't much more the government can do to dramatically change those death rates in a short period of time.
Banning SUVs (2 to 6 times as likely to kill someone in a crash, and more likely to be involved in a crash, than cars), lowering speed limits (which would also positively impact pollution, climate, and possibly the economy (by keeping more money around rather than sending it to the Middle East?) etc), would help with the first one. Large grants for public transportation infrastructure would help both, and quite dramatically. Luckily, we're finally starting to see at least the latter.
If someone in your family started to gamble compulsively, would you wait until they were spending more money than your mortgage?
You're quite right. But think of it this way: if the deaths due to this new flu level off at a couple of million per year, it will be no worse than obesity, and should receive no more attention. Do you think that that is likely?
Obviously, the number could level off much higher. We don't know, but I'm sure they are busily trying to bound the number. But if they end up taking stronger action than that which they take for some other risk, they really should have cause to believe that it is likely to be more catastrophic than the other risk.
What we have here is a government that has decided that certain deaths are an acceptable consequence of our way of life. If you know the numbers and you know the mechanism and know the trade-offs and you have the power to choose, the consequence of your choice is your intention.
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
OMFG I still have a scar from my swine flu vacination that I was forced to have when I was in the Army in 1976. My arm swelled up with pus as if I had a boil. I was sick for days but at least I was not hospitalized like some of my friends. Wired has an article about those days. 1 person died from the actual flu while 30+ people died from the vacination. The nation wide vacination program cost $135 mil($500 mil in todays dollars). I hope they improved the vacine from those days because mine hurt like a bitch.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
The high altitude makes pollution worse. I was in Bogota Columbia and the pollution there in combination with the altitude made the air very unhealthy. Like Mexico City they are implementing ways to get cars off the streets where only odd numbered licence plates can drive on odd days etc.
I'm quite certain the pollution and altitude mix makes things worse there. The question is the disease still leathal in other environments. The Google map had a death in Baja Mexico as well... I think we'll see the results in the next few days. If the disease is widely leathal outside of Mexico City and peripheral (as opposed to just contageous) then that would debunk our theory somewhat.
On the other hand as these scares spread so do -I would think- the incidence of exaggeration and mis-reported deaths (only suspected to be swine flue because of the notion being so present) so the information isn't going to be objective.
The best case scenario is that the pollution is the cause of the real leathality and then in the aftermath we but more serious efforts into improving air quality and maybe reducing dependance on plague breeding factory farms (However, that never really happened with the bird flu scare so it's probably too optimistic)
Stupidity is its own reward.
Nah that didn't go over so well. Well how about a little Leviticus for your amusement? http://www.christiananswers.net/bible/lev15.html That seems to be the level of hysteria we're reaching at this point.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It's all in your head. You'd probably be (maybe you are?) one of those parents who think that vaccinations are a pharmaceutical industry conspiracy. Allergies are a little strange. People can go their whole lives being exposed to something, then one day have an allergic reaction to it. Some people also outgrow allergies. Asthma is sometimes similar. That doesn't change the fact that medication can (though doesn't always) reduce symptoms. It most certainly doesn't mean that you're actions have had any effect on your response to allergens.
Trying to "conquer" allergies is like trying to conquer pneumonia or strep throat. Just because you haven't caught it doesn't mean that multivitamin or apple-a-day is the reason.