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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.
Q - What illness caused the pig to fly?
A - Swine flu.
...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.
Those thousands that die are among hundreds of thousands or more who get infected. This strain has infected far fewer people, yet killed more of them, so the mortality rate is much higher.
If infection became widespread, as was the case in 1918, then we could be looking at serious losses.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
Trouble is "the flu" isn't really a single entity. There are numerous different strains, with different behavior, different preferred hosts, and different degrees of lethality. This one is rather worse than the usual.
Adding to the nuisance, is the fact that flu strains can swap components with one another to produce exotic variants quickly. Pigs are excellent for that, because they have their own strains, and some degree of susceptibility to certain avian and human strains.
It might well burn itself out; but it would be a pity if it were the start of Spanish flu 2.0 (now with high speed air travel!).
What's next - flying pig flu?
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
> Why does this one have a special name?
a) It is genetically different from the usual flus.
b) In 1918 a form of swine flu killed millions.
> I can't decide how scared to be.
So far it seems to kill only Mexicans. I suppose you could construct a conspiracy theory around that.
> As if there were anything I could do about it anyways.
Avoid people. They're dangerous.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
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!
> This influenza virus is a strain that utilizes pig, bird, and human genetic information.
This influenza virus is a strain that utilizes pig, bird, and human influenza genetic information.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
The flu kills thousands of people every year. Why does this one have a special name?
So far it seems to have a 5% mortality rate, which is above normal. Usually mortality is 5% of those hospitalized, rather than 5% of all. Of course, the stats are from small numbers that are very new, so we'll have to wait for better information. It's certainly worth paying attention to though.
I can't decide how scared to be. As if there were anything I could do about it anyways.
If everyone would make an extra effort to wash their hands, cover their nose/mouth when coughing, and stay the f*** home from work/school when you are sick, that would help. If you can slow the spread, researchers can get a better understanding of the flu and how to treat it before everyone gets sick.
Avian flu still seems much worse though, since it has a much higher mortality rate, in particular among the young. It doesn't seem to be able to spread as fast though, thus the concern about this new flu.
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
Nope
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Others have mentioned the rather high (apparent) mortality rate (the numbers are quite thin at this point). Another factor increasing the attention is that the flu season is usually over by now.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
The 1918 flu pandemic (commonly referred to as the Spanish flu) was an influenza pandemic that spread to nearly every part of the world. It was caused by an unusually virulent and deadly Influenza A virus strain of subtype H1N1. Historical and epidemiologic data are inadequate to identify the geographic origin of the virus.[1] Most of its victims were healthy young adults, in contrast to most influenza outbreaks which predominantly affect juvenile, elderly, or otherwise weakened patients. The pandemic lasted from March 1918 to June 1920, spreading even to the Arctic and remote Pacific islands. It is estimated that anywhere from 20 to 100 million people were killed worldwide.
While we, at least industrialized countries, are far better equipped to deal with another major outbreak than in 1918; I feel taking precautions would be the rational thing to do.
The Long Now Foundation
If you'd take a little time to read about it... yes, it's 'really' special.
I'm not saying "ZOMG WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE"-special - we're not, as it is, many of those infected happily survive.
Let's start with 'the flu', though.. There is no 'the flu'. Influenza is a big ol' family of viruses.
This one - although it baffles me why the media latched onto 'swine' as their name for it, maybe the pork industry lobbied strongly against naming it 'pork' or 'pig' flu - is one of the mutations of form H1N1 ('bird flu' was H5N1; H and N refer to certain protein types). That only tells part of the story as there's multiple H1N1s with different aminoacids and whatnot, like yea olde Spanish flu (yeah, the proper pandemic one) was H1N1 as well. There's the first 'special' bit; it shares a name with the Spanish flu.
Won't go into details about how it differs from Spanish flu - suffice it to say that this particular strain of H1N1 influenza appears to be a mixture of porcine, bird and human flu viruses' RNA. From there comes the second 'special' bit. It's 'rare' that the flu jumps species from pigs to humans in general, even rarer for it to thrive, but even more rare that it appears to spread between humans.
Now for the third special bit... even H5N1 - that other 'big scare' - mostly affected the (really) young, the elderly, and the weak in terms of severity. This one, however, seems to just as happily make young healthy adults sick.
That's why it deserves its own little name. As for how scared you should be:
'Swine' flu responds well to the relatively recent anti-flu drug Oseltamivir (marketing name: Tamiflu). That is to say, it gets killed pretty quickly and eradicated from the body if treatment is followed through (yeah, I know, right?). That's good news for the producers of Tamiflu who love having this in the news, and for their shareholders who saw their stock skyrocket as a result. It's pretty special that there's tons of people out there just waiting around to make money off of this kind of thing.
Oh, and it's also good news for those infected, of course.
Unfortunately, Tamiflu (and others) are prescribed willy-nilly as seasonal flu drugs (despite the CDC advising against it; like 'advice' matters if there's a mint to be made), making it all the more likely that more resistant strains will pop up in due time.
At the same time, being a relatively recent drug, not all of the side-effects are fully known and understood yet.
As for what you can do about it...
- I wouldn't plan a trip to Mexico and go frolic with any pigs if I were you.
- I wouldn't swap spit/etc. with any of the students already diagnosed as being possibly infected.
- If you are infected with any type of flu.. cover your mouth when sneezing/coughing, wash hands regularly. Won't do much for you, but it'll help prevent spreading of it.
Speaking of the CDC.. they have some pretty decent pages up as well:
http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/general_info.htm
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!
This virus is killing healthier people. Clearly the solution is to eat terribly and weaken your immune system.
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.
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.
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.
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.
--
Regards
Design that is.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
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.
wasn't 1918 flu a swine flu ? Isn't this also similar to the 1918 flu in that it overwhelms the immune response in healthy young people, leading to mortality being higher in younger healthier people than the elderly ?
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.
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!
Immediately buy stock in Anheiser-Busch and Dunkin Donuts...
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
While we, at least industrialized countries, are far better equipped to deal with another major outbreak than in 1918; I feel taking precautions would be the rational thing to do.
Don't be so sure about it my friend. My parents work in the NHS. The procedure for a flu pandemic assumes that society will collapse, which will likely be a reasonable assessment. All the preparations have been aimed at H5N1, so though the anti-virals stockpiled will most likely work*, the vaccines will not**.
I think this one is the real deal. The death rate is high, considering it's in Mexico, which may not be on a par with the UK in medical treatment but isn't sub-Saharan Africa or rural China either.
The BBC is quoting doctors as saying that this has been around for a week. If people in Mexico City are expressing symptoms, you can bet it's around the world now, by people carrying it during its incubation period. I live in London, and I bet you a tenner that someone, somewhere in this city has this right now.
*There are some reports that anti-virals are ineffective, I think they're hysteria.
**They probably wouldn't have anyway.
All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.
Its not 2012...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I had to read those three times before I found the difference.
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.
Um, honestly the earth isn't overpopulated in the least and can easily handle a few billion more. Then there is declining birthrates in most of the developed world, so a pandemic really isn't necessary to cut down on the population of the world.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I'm not dead!
Checking Slashdot and finding this article at the top?
Right next to the poll, "How long do you expect to live?"
[End Of Line]
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.
*There are some reports that anti-virals are ineffective, I think they're hysteria.
The US Centers for Disease Control say the following:
"There are four different antiviral drugs that are licensed for use in the US for the treatment of influenza: amantadine, rimantadine, oseltamivir and zanamivir. While most swine influenza viruses have been susceptible to all four drugs, the most recent swine influenza viruses isolated from humans are resistant to amantadine and rimantadine. At this time, CDC recommends the use of oseltamivir or zanamivir for the treatment and/or prevention of infection with swine influenza viruses."
But then again, I could be wrong.
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....
Oseltamivir is the one the NHS has stockpiled, under the brand Tamiflu.
All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.
This flu kills healthy people by causing fluid buildup in the lungs.
So, yes, quit smoking!
(T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
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.
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
We don't really know the carrying capacity of the Earth, and at any rate allowing billions to die isn't a valid solution by any reasonable moral standard.
Continued growth with the current trends is the real problem, but even then there are much more humane solutions than allowing the horrors of history to continue to work their course. Raising the level of development in a region tends to cause a decrease in the birthrate, so much so that Europe is having the opposite problem, so continued efforts to develop poorer states (and, coincidentally, mitigate these kinds of pandemics) is the best way to keep populations under control.
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.
Good point; I should have added "If your employer has a halfway decent policy, ...". In tech fields, most employers do have a reasonable policy; however in many service fields, the written or unwritten policies are not nearly as accommodating.
For any employers out there, make sure sick people can stay home, since it is better to lose their (partial) productivity for day, rather than to make the whole office sick.
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"
Seems like the only solution for a rational government is to outlaw all pigs. I mean think of the children!
Sure it is, off people.
so a pandemic really isn't necessary to cut down on the population of the world.
Uhm, from 1 to 6 billion people in 100 years? I doubt less kids here mean less people on the globe.
It would probably be much better* with just 1 billion people or so, but then most of us don't want to die off this anyway.
* Unless you consider our intelligence and chance of being the first specie leaving their original home planet and spreading life thru the universe and such things.
Sorry, 20 confirmed fatalities out of ~1,000 known cases is not enough for me to start panicking. Call me when the mortality rate reaches double digits. And there are things we don't know. First, how old were the people who died? Second, what was their general state of health? If they were all over 60 and already sick with something else, chances are this bug is no worse than any other strain of the flu. And let's not forget - there are over 20,000,000 people in Mexico DF, and so far only 1,000 cases of this new bug have been reported there and far, far fewer than that in the US. Colour me unimpressed.
It seems like we go through this every year or two. A "new" version of the flu (and they're ALL new; if the bug never changed you'd get sick once and then your body's antibodies would wipe it out every time and you'd never get sick again) shows up and people start to panic and then nothing happens. A few people get sick, a few old or immune-compromised people die and the general population goes about its business.
I'd like to think we could learn to control our impulse to panic, but I know it's nearly impossible with the media feeding our collective paranoia. Still, I'd like to share some advice I got from a very friendly-looking book one time: Don't Panic. Please?
> 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.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
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...
It's a new strain of "swine" flu (only called that because it originated in swine) that contains elements of bird, human, and swine flu viruses. It is transmitted between humans. Stop spreading misinformation.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Is 7% a "high" death rate?
Wikipedia has normal flu mortality at 0.1%.
The only solution is to call al gore. If anyone can kill off the manbirdpig flu, it's him.
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.
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.
Skyrocket, eh? Gilead Sciences, which developed Tamiflu/Oseltamivir, and Roche, which markets it, haven't moved much since the outbreak started on March 18 (although this was apparently assumed to be regular flu for a few days, so it's hard to tell when people would have noticed this, although there is a weird spike in volume on March 18 even though the price barely moved (there was also a similar spike the last two days this week, but the price dropped 10%)). Further, the price hasn't moved much during any identifiable period I can see; GILD had an 8% bounce over two days at the beginning of April (which it has now lost), but this is much smaller movement than what was seen in January and February.
On the other hand Zanamivir (trade name Relenza), developped by Biota and marketed by GlaxoSmithKline has seen some movement. GSK, like Roche and GILD, had some movement since March 18 but nothing out of the ordinary (10% max movement and 0% net over the period), especially compared to the previous two months. Biota, on the other hand, has jumped nearly 40% this week, and has had an identifiable volume jump this week. Is this related to the pandemic? Maybe, but the company released a press release Thursday saying its royalties from Relenza for the first three months of 2009 (mostly before the swine flu) were sixteen times greater than the average royalties over the preceding two 3-month periods, and market regulators are wondering if there was some insider trading going on that anticipated the report. That's certainly likely to affect the price independent of the swine flu.
Since the price of any of these shares has not skyrocketed as you claimed, and arguably may have gone down, depending when you decide the information could have been reasonably public that people could have figured out to invest in these companies, it seems the opportunity for these people waiting around to make money is still there. Perhaps as someone thinking about these things without looking at any facts, maybe you should just jump right in.
P.S. Don't forget to check out the next season of The Sarah Connor Chronicles this fall on FOX.
Is 7% a "high" death rate?
Wikipedia has normal flu mortality at 0.1%.
Which is pretty much the number of people who are always within a few months of death because of age and/or illness.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
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
> Don't be so sure about it my friend. My parents work in the NHS. The procedure for a flu
> pandemic assumes that society will collapse
I'd be willing to bet you quite a large amount of money that it won't (think about that for a minute before you answer).
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Also bear in mind that the population explosion happened after the 1918 flu period. To to put it in perspective, you should probably inflate the numbers by 10 so consider about a billion people dying today.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Don't they have their own exotic diseases to worry about?
And this has an effect on the spread of this particular disease because...?
islamic countries
Less likely than China. Personal contact is already kept at a minimum.
No offense intended, but what the fuck are you talking about? In my experience, people in Muslim countries are more hands on than most western countries: greetings involve long handshakes, several kisses on the cheeks, hugs, and so on. Men are much less self-conscious about hugging, holding hands, or putting their arms over each other's shoulders (all out of friendship, so spare us the "OMG THEY ALL HAVE TEH GAY" comments). All in all, you will probably find much more interpersonal contact. I can only assume that the reason you see it as less is because of the extreme gender divide that exists in those countries.
Not to defend Mr. Coward's idiotic comments, but yours are equally uniformed.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
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."
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
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).
Mortality rate was -only- 2.5% of those infected during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. A normal flu is something like .1% of those infected.
Even with the 'official' death statistics - 80 out of 1380 - the death toll is about 5.7%. That's fucking huge, yet unofficial reports are claiming as high as 2-3x as many as the official death count (such as in the OP's linked article).
This is almost beyond scary.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
That isn't what happened in 1918. Nothing tangible has changed since then in regards to how a flu pandemic affects us; we have a very limited capacity to vaccinate against every strain of influenza.
Every false alarm is essentially meaningless; the one time it isn't a false alarm, we really do need to react. When that happens, not acting quickly will cost lives. The 1918 outbreak infected a billion (half the population at the time) and killed upwards of a hundred million; a similar outbreak today might kill anywhere from 120-600 million. If the mortality rate does hit the double digits, and we've done nothing up until that point, we're fucked.
Also, you are badly misinformed about the nature of the casualties this time around. Most flu outbreaks only kill the old, the young and the immune compromised. This one killed healthy adults.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
The regular vaccine does not cover this particular strain, so not really.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
We don't really know the carrying capacity of the Earth, and at any rate allowing billions to die isn't a valid solution by any reasonable moral standard.
That's interesting. So your statement preemptively declares all opposing positions as being "unreasonable". You also assume that "valid" solutions must be moral as you define it and that we must have a solution.
Why is death by disease immoral? Why is not making extraordinary efforts to treat the diseases of others immoral? By who's standard other than yours?
If you are a religious person than I can understand your position. If you are not then I wonder how you arrived at it. I don't know where you are coming from here, but I do wonder about the large number of people in the West who renounce or ignore religious faith and yet still have this sense of moral certainty and who freely make moral judgement of one and all.
I'm not trying to pick on you personally, but /. is full of people who on one hand are quite certain in their moral judgements and yet mock religion and the religious. It's sort of a "mock religion" they seem to follow if you'll pardon the pun.
Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. - Clement Mok
If a billion died, that would be a bad thing. There are 6.77 billion people on earth (Apr 2009 estimate), so if 15% of the world died (1 billion), it would be catastrophic.
We haven't even begun to understand what happens when modern bodies decompose. It won't be pretty. For most of the 100 billion people that have lived and died on earth, most have been "all natural" people. They've eaten from the land, and haven't had any modifications done. In more recent years, that's changed. We have ingested more heavy metals than should even exist in nature. We have teeth filled with toxic materials; capped with toxic materials; bones reinforced with metal implants; cosmetic alterations done with synthetic implants; poisons injected throughout our lives (vaccines, medications, etc). On top of this, when we die we are filled with more dangerous chemicals, placed in a coffin inside a vault, which are made to last for at least 100 years. What would happen if 15% of the population died in rapid succession? The 100 year safety net would disappear. We probably wouldn't embalm our dead. Mass grave sites would take the remains, and let them rot in the ground. In a relatively short period of time, the toxins that we currently vault away in the ground would leach into the ground quickly, contaminating the drinking water.
But hey, I'm the eternal optimist. Maybe most people aren't all that toxic. ha.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Which is pretty much the number of people who are always within a few months of death because of age and/or illness.
Which is the difference between the "normal" flu, which kills infants and old people, and any of the historical "pandemic" flus, which killed young and middle-aged adults.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
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.
"If you are a religious person than I can understand your position. If you are not then I wonder how you arrived at it. I don't know where you are coming from here, but I do wonder about the large number of people in the West who renounce or ignore religious faith and yet still have this sense of moral certainty and who freely make moral judgement of one and all."
Religion was invented to explain and exploit our existing "morals". "Thou shall not kill" did not come from God it came from a man who was expressing what billions of years of evolution has made him think. Sure you can attempt to rationalise these inate morals away but if you manage to that then you will probably be classified as a phycopath or at the very least a sociopath.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Thanks for this useful information. You get special treatment once I am victorious.
How about a couple hundred gold bars and a gun arsenal? (Of course if I had that available I would be in an underground bunker somewhere typing this)
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.
Deal, as long as "money" is defined by "the most common medium of exchange." I'm assuming it will either be gold, food, or anti-virals. All of which I could use if society collapses.
>Don't be so sure about it my friend. My parents work in the NHS.
>The procedure for a flu pandemic assumes that society will
> collapse, which will likely be a reasonable assessment.
Uh, "society will collapse" is a "reasonable assessment"?! Did society collapse in 1918? I don't recall reading about it. Why is it any more likely now, with far better supportive care, and far better understanding of the causes? This is ridiculous, "society" in some form has managed to exist for at least ~8000 years, through a lot worse epidemics than this.
Brett
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/
Which is the interesting part because this flu is most deadly to those with a good immune system because it triggers an overreaction which is what causes the damage. Those with a poorer immune system are not as badly affected!
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
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
It's worse among doctors. It doesn't surprise me that the BBC article contains reports about residents and interns dying. I wonder how many patients get infected via sick doctors?
Large teaching hospitals are dependent on residents who work 80 hours a week to barely cover the workload. If someone calls in sick, then it means your already overworked and fatigued colleagues will have to cover for your "weakness." Oftentimes the onus is on you to find your replacement. And so the culture discourages it - either through active hostility or feelings of guilt and/or machismo on the part of the sick person. This culture is learned in med school and residency then gets carried forward.
I'm a resident physician and every year I have to do some online training for all hospital employees that says to stay home if you're sick, and we residents just laugh. The idea of calling in sick for a low grade temp and a cough is so out of the realm of possibility, it's absurd. I'm not saying this is a good or noble thing - there's a lot of things about the culture of medicine and residency (such as work hours) that are fucked up and end up adversely affecting patient care.
I've lived in the are of Mexico hardest hit (just moved back to the states last year), and I visit regularly still. A couple of notes, first of all Mexico isn't as undeveloped as you may believe. In my experience the big difference between Mexico and the US is the standard of living. Mexico has everything the US has, and medically may be a bit better off since I believe it has a more socialized medical system. There are however two big issues, first the fact that penicillin and other antibiotics are readily available over the counter, and just like in the US it isn't uncommon for people to take medication until they feel better and then stop. Doing this with antibiotics causes a really big concern for drug resistant strains to show up. Also as some others have pointed out the flu virus actually spreads better in colder climates. Some of you may not be aware but not all of Mexico is warm like Cancun or Acapulco. Mexico City and especially Toluca are pretty high up in the mountains (7,349 and 8,790) and they do get downright chilly at night even in the summer.
My guess as to why this got bad so quick is the government trying not to panic everyone. You have to remember that parts of Mexico are completely dependent on tourism, and with the bad economy and the drug violence already going on I'm not sure the government didn't want to make matters worse by announcing a pandemic as well.
I've been following Mexican news and talking to family in the area and the situation is now completely out of control. The government has shut down all the schools in the affected areas, business, and restaurants are all closed. To put this in perspective imagine the whole state of New York shutting everything down for ten days because of the flu. The military is handing out what masks they have (everywhere is out of of them now). Major sporting events are being played without an audience (literally the stands are completely empty). What businesses are open (like banks) are rotating their staff every couple of hours to keep the number of people in one area at a time down. According to my relatives in the area the streets are deserted and even the grocery stores are empty. There is full on panic there.
BTW, the running joke down there is that Obama brought the virus with him, since the outbreak coincided with his visit. Obviously not true, but amusing.
Is 7% a "high" death rate?
Wikipedia has normal flu mortality at 0.1%.
Yeah, but just after I edited the article.
That's interesting. So your statement preemptively declares all opposing positions as being "unreasonable".
If the only opposing position we're talking about is deliberately standing by and allowing millions of people to die from a relatively easily preventable cause, then yes, I don't have a problem with preemptively calling that immoral.
Why is death by disease immoral?
Its not, but a large number of deaths by an easily prevented disease is (or should be).
Why is not making extraordinary efforts to treat the diseases of others immoral?
This entirely depends on how we define "extraordinary".
By who's standard other than yours?
If enough people agree with it, then it doesn't *matter* who originated the "standard". Why did you even bother to ask this? You know darn well the GP's attitude is, in general, held by a lot of people. If this attitude wasn't widespread, the world wouldn't have nearly as many aid organizations as it does (Red Cross, CARE, Doctors Without Borders, et cetera ad nauseum).
If you are a religious person
I'm not religious, I'm just a rather ordinary member of that very social species we call "homo sapiens", who, when he sees or hears of another member of the same species dying a pointless death, has the guts to think of more than just himself and ask himself the question "What if that was me?".
You don't need "religion" to see the GP's point of view, you just have to have the ability to "put yourself in someone else's shoes", so to speak.
Of course, I'm also a realist, and I know that despite my opinion, "immoral" behavior such as standing by while others are lost to easily preventable deaths will continue, for all sorts of reasons, with, I suspect, the main reason being that for every person who asks themselves the question "What if that was me?" in the above situation, there is at least one other person who doesn't think about anything beyond their initial reaction of "Whew! Glad that wasn't me!". Well, no one has ever accused humanity of being homogeneous. :)