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WHO Declares H1N1's Spread Officially a Pandemic
juggledean writes "The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared a global flu pandemic after holding an emergency meeting, according to reports. It means the swine flu virus is spreading in at least two regions of the world with rising cases being seen in the UK, Australia, Japan and Chile." Whether it's called a pandemic or not, there's a hopeful note in the story about H1N1's spread: "...there were people who believed we might be in a kind of apocalyptic situation and what we're really seeing now with H1N1 is that in most cases the disease is self-limiting."
and into the pandemic! (I made that up myself!)
WHO Declares H1N1's Spread Officially a Pandemic
I don't know, I'm asking YOU!
... and I DON'T KNOW is on third.
Let's just get that out of the way first and foremost.
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
I admit I'm not the most knowledgeable about this topic, but I *do* know that H1N1 is not a very specific name for this influenza strain. In the past, we have named influenza outbreaks such as these after their country of origin (see Spanish Flu, Hong Kong Flu, Asian Flu), and in light of this I think a more appropriate name would be "Mexican Flu".
I am glad /. thinks so highly of itself to tag this announcement by the WHO as 'overreaction.' I suppose I should have seen that coming.
I am still heading down to cabo next week for some fishing....I plan on imbibing enough sterilizing fluid to kill any rouge viruses coming into my system. Those that survive my Digestive system wont survive my bloodstream.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
after it hit europe it's a pandemic. india/china aren't pandemic worthy?
..
For years, and years in the United States we fought forest fires in an absolute manner. When you see a fire, put it out completely, ASAP. And slowly fuel that should have burned built up. Until eventually the fires that did break out were so intense that they couldn't fight them anymore. Now that the world population is approaching 7 billion, am I the only one who finds this analogy terrifying?
When I first read the subject line I had a sudden hankering for some pork chops and apple sauce. Mmmm.
Today when I awakened, I saw something that had me shake'n; the WHO was warning of da flu, something new, this strange new Swine flu; now this big 'ol pandemic is causing quite a panic; the media is trip'n, help'n the economy keep slip'n; dum dee dee dum dum; I don't know where to run, so I'll sit here on my bum sip'n on sum rum; dum dee dee dum dum.
"Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad." [Ecclesiastes 7:3]
This reminds me of Blue Alert, from Red Dwarf http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa_gZ_7sdZg
...Mike Jones
I tell people that freak out about swine flu this:
- You can get infected when it sinks through your skin
- If you catch it, it will give you an aneurysm
You can tell if you've got swine flu, because you come out in rashers.
Don't know if this is just a sick coincidence but....
2007 - Chinese year of the Chicken - Bird Flu Pandemic devastates parts of Asia
2008 - Chinese year of the Horse - Equine Influenza decimates Australian racing
2009 - Chinese year of the Pig - Swine Flu Pandemic kills hundreds of pigs around the globe.
Has any one else noticed this?
It gets worse........
next year......
2010 - Chinese year of the Cock - what could possibly go wrong?
Douches,
Pandemics refer to a disease's spread, not its severity.
The common cold is also a pandemic.
While we're talking about animal diseases, what about german measles?
Whether it's called a pandemic or not, [...] we might be in a kind of apocalyptic situation and what we're really seeing now with H1N1 is that in most cases the disease is [...]."
Fun with selective editing!
But it IS an overreaction. It's only NOT an overreaction if you're: a politician who is desperately trying to get the public to look the other way, to funnel more public money into private hands... a bureaucrat who is trying to get a promotion by "doing something" and is also very concerned about being labeled as passive if the final tally is 1% higher than normal... or a scientist who is desperately trying to grab more funding or a contract for his very own vaccine-making company.
It's a paradise for self-interest (and OF self-interest, as well).
With something like less than 500 deaths worldwide, this is the average equivalent of 3 days worth of seasonal flu... and considering that this virus has had a chance to spread for the past 2 months, I simply cannot fathom it being any more damaging than whatever seasonal flu strain is circulating in the world right now.
Yet all we get are headlines such as "27'000 infected". Well... how about 500'000 dead?! Cause that's what seasonal flu did last year. Put that in a headline and smoke it.
We've been through this again and again and again. But what ever happened with these?
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/05/01/199228/Flu-Models-Predict-Pandemic-But-Flu-Chips-Ready
Or this
http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/09/05/01/1329231/Lets-Rename-Swine-Flu-As-Colbert-Flu
Or This
http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/05/02/2313220/Swine-Flu-Genetics-Suggest-a-Vaccine-Is-Possible
"i lost my dignity on a slippery wiener"
Compared to REAL pandemics like the black death, the 1918 flu pandemic, etc. they are REALLY screaming wolf on this one. I think WHO is more interested in covering their asses than giving useful information. If they're not careful, they're going to set off a panic like the "pandemic" of 1976 (that led to more deaths from the inoculations than the disease).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
... and the nurses spend a lot of time rolling their eyes about this. Or as one of the doctors put it, "Replace 'H1N1' with 'bad cold.'"
Yes, it's killed a number of people. But not as many (in the same timespan) as, say, cars, or industrial accidents, or smoking, or cancer, or heart disease, or drug violence, or drugs themselves, or the US military, or suicide, or old age, or AIDS, or plane crashes, or....
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
I think this completely diminishes the "severity" of a pandemic.
In the technical sense it is a disease that is widespread and uncontained; but if this is the benchmark then the common cold and normal flu ought to be raised to this level too, because they have the same wide spreadness and are most dangerous to the same classes of people, the elderly, children and those with immune issues. Every single year the "poultry (normal)" flu kills many, many more people in the exact same way and in the exact same circumstances.
This is only getting attention because of the media hype. The left wants more money to expand government to deal with it, and the right wants money to build a fence to keep things like this from coming from Mexico into the US, and the media is psyched because it's new, has political tie-ins, and came when the meltdown was becoming old-news.
Not only that, are we really surprised? Pigs are biologically similar enough to humans that we use pig organs for some transplants. Having infections that cross the species barrier in this way seem blatantly obvious.
Forgive my spelling from time to time. I'm often posting during short breaks.
Sorry, nobody mentionned us in the last few topics, we're lonely up here.
Let us grant, very strictly for the sake of argument, that the fact that the virus isn't being called "Mexican Flu" (a name that has never been in widespread use for it, but I digress) is because the media, which is, again for the sake of argument is in fact liberal and "politically correct," doesn't want to hurt tourism in Mexico.
Now, what exactly is supposed to be wrong with that goal? Isn't it a virtue to help other people? Are you actually telling us that we should instead change the name of the current H1N1 flu outbreak to "Mexican Flu" in order to hurt tourism to Mexico? Why would anybody want to do this?
Are you adequate?
mod parent up for conspiracy theory!
I say we call it the "Wrath of Chan"
Chhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
A link to Pandemic 2 the game.
http://www.crazymonkeygames.com/Pandemic-2.html
Celebrate the promotion of H1N1 to Pandemic status by trying to wipe out the human race. Fun for the whole family.
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
that was funny, but...
2007 Pig
2008 Rat
2009 Ox
2010 Tiger
Is it a pandemic in the disease spread methodology? Yes.
Is it killing millions of people each year? No.
Is it killing thousands of people each year? No.
Is it killing slightly more than any typical flu does? Yes.
Solution? Wash your hands with hot water (not scalding) and non-antibiotic soap (e.g. Ivory hand soap). Cover your mouth and nose when you sneeze, using a sleeve if you have no tissue.
That literally cuts the infection rate dramatically.
Now, if you don't mind, I'm going back to my medical research.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
In all of the planning that's been going on in my public health work, the big worry is that this will repeat the pattern of the 1918 pandemic: - The disease shows up in a weak form in the spring, makes some people mildly ill, kills some people who are traditionally susceptible to influenza (very young, elderly, and people with chronic disease) - The disease mostly disappears through the summer--not entirely, but becomes much less common - The disease shows up again in the fall in a new, much more virulent form, and has a much higher mortality rate, especially among healthy adults. See this graph, which shows how the mortality among different ages was very different from traditional influenza. There is no guarantee that this would happen, and no guarantee that it won't peter out like the 1976 fiasco. But we see it as a better bet to risk the accusation of an overreaction than to risk not being prepared.
our new swine overlords.
Drug companies, making disease and cure? Or is it too conspiracy theory-ish even for a boring Thursday morning?
Did you just pull a Godwin on diseases?
just not particularly lethal
in 1918, the same thing happened: the flu appeared in the spring, outside its usual pattern of appearing in the fall, and then percolated all summer, just below the radar, expanding stealthily but inevitable everywhere
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol12no01/05-0979.htm
then (in the northern hemisphere, it would explode in the cold months of the spring in the southern hemisphere) the flu exploded in the fall, and killed millions that winter. this is inevitable with flu because the flu virus actually survives in cold air for a longer period of time
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/health/05flu.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print&oref=login
so the summer months deaden its spread (really, just slow down its spread) so that it spreads stealthily but inevitably, while the winter months allow it to flourish and explode, seemingly everywhere at the same time (because the summer months allowed to actually go everywhere, just in small little clusters everywhere)
its also important to note that flu in 1918 killed at a very low rate, like under 1% of its victims. whatever strain dominates this winter, will be the real issue. will it have a 0.0003% mortality rate? or a 0.3% mortality rate? we're talking about the difference of tens of millions of lives in that difference, and no one knows what that mortality rate will be, since its such tiny little variations and random chance of one mutation dominating or another at work here
so beware false alarmism, and beware false complacency. this virus is a genuine unknown quantity. it really could kill a lot this winter, it could really completely fizzle out. both anyone freaking out, or completely blase and lackadaisacal about the whole thing, are fooling themselves
an unknown is an unknown is an unknown. neither false complacency or false alarmism is an appropriate response to that
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
...Pete Townshend, Roger Daltry, and company are being proactive on the medical front.
This means I have to get the goddamn vaccine shot on Monday when my vacation ends as I work as a nurse.
Most of them, do not cover pandemic cases.
Check your insurance contract.
Cheers!
Doesn't Godwin only apply to Nazi/Hitler references? (I just pulled it, didn't I?)
A wise man once said, "Where is my other quotation mark?
...don't cast pearls before swine like that.
If you quote this signature there'll be 72 copies of Windows ME waiting for you in Heaven.
That was the main plot of Rainbow Six. Except the cure was also a vector.
SHUT...
DOWN...
EVERYTHING!
Once it spreads, it can become servere afterwards.
BRB, moving to Madagascar...
Does pointing this out make you a Goodwin law Nazi?
Everybody panic!
Does pointing this out make you a Goodwin law Nazi?
If you hadn't just goodwin'd yourself, that would be quite insightful for pointing out that irony.
http://www17.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=number+of+deaths+swine+flu
139
... as the Earth falls down a giant black hole.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Clearly, this should have been an "Ask Slashdot"
I've talked to people who still think that you can get it from eating pork products.
We've got to put a stop to this ignorance. You cannot get the disease that way -- but you CAN get revenge!
The common cold is also a pandemic.
OH SHIT!!! The common cold is a pandemic!!! I had a friend who had a cold last week. SHIT!!! We're all gonna DIIIIIIEEEEE!!!!!!!!
Er, the 1918 flu pandemic started as a mild but very infectious disease. Then, come autumn, it killed more people than WW1.
This is no problem then; autumn is literally months away!
Careful. We Germans aren't all smiles and sunshine.
"...there were people who believed we might be in a kind of apocalyptic situation and what we're really seeing now with H1N1 is that in most cases the disease is self-limiting."
Because it's wiping out the entire local populations? AIEEE!!!
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
... that nobody is really paying attention OR giving a shit anymore.
Send your spendthrift head of state this
I can't take this news seriously, and I don't think it deserves to be taken seriously. It's not news, it's fear mongering.
Post-DNA living (possibly on computer chips like the analog FACETS) would mean no more influenza.
But then we'll have to worry about conficker, and who knows what else (damn, I clicked that attachment, and now I've got AIDs!)
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
"Mad cow == bird flu == swine flu == HORSESHIT."
You might have expressed it better, but you....are correct.
MRSA has a vastly higher body count than all the above, but since it is often spread by poor hygiene at hospitals it gets low billing.
http://www.protomag.com/assets/a-killer-called-staph
http://www.symptomsmrsa.com/ca-mrsa/ca-mrsa-death-count-surpassing-aids/
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/heic/patient/mrsa/
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Swine flu dropped off the media radar. They had to turn the scare back on... Millions are at stake! $ not people of course.
"The Unknown"
An Amateur poem by Donald Rumsfeld
Feb. 12, 2002
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.
http://www.slate.com/id/2081042/
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
No that would be "Swinehund" flu.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Its Manbirdpig!
What we know for now is that it is extremely benign. Doom saying aside, it'll likely have little effect. 1918 was a looong time ago with wars going on, etc. Oh wait...
People need to get a grip on their fear. This thing has killed like what, 150 people globally? And people are worried why?
In related news, HIV killed another 6000 people today. It will kill another 6000 tomorrow too, and the day after that, and the day after that. Funny how the more deadly but less trendy pandemics don't seem to get a lot of news time these days.
Bibo Ergo Sum.
I'd disagree that MRSA gets a low billing. Pretty much everyone has heard of it and it's widely acknowledged as a big problem.
However, saying it has a "higher body count" is meaningless. Do you mean a higher mortality rate? This is difficult to measure because it tends to hit those who are already weak.
H1N1 seems to be not *that* bad at present, but the mortality rate could be something like 0.1%. That's not going to bring down society but it's an awful lot of deaths if it explodes. It's potentially a much greater threat than MRSA.
Check out the death rate.
They are not doing technical work, they are politican.
Drop WHO.
If the virus mutate and mix with H5N1, then we could be in serious trouble.
The current strain that started in Mexico is already a mix of strains of avian-, pig- and human- flu origin.
That's also why there was an initial "OMG! Mexican pigs are going to kill us all" panic.
But turns out that when the virus reaches richer and better prepared countries, it "only" has a mortality rate of 0.2%, not the higher rate initially observed in Mexico.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
they say, but I wish if they're just elevating the level of monitoring a bit they would choose a different name for it.
Remember you can't spell PANdemIC without panic, and that's exactly what I think the outcome will be.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
How about we call it Mexican Swine Flu?
Another 2 case's detected in New Zealand at Auckland Hospital (during the week I was there with my kids), a nurse returned from UK with the virus and passed it to one of her children... who then went to daycare.
Working from the BBC report at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8021547.stm
Canada reports 2 deaths in 1530 cases giving a raw rate of 0.1%.
Mexico reports 97 deaths in 5029 cases giving a raw rate of 1.9%.
The US reports 17 deaths in 8975 cases giving a raw rate of 0.2%.
The world totals are 117 deaths in 19,315 cases giving a raw rate of 0.6%.
Now, I know the infection rate is institutionally, and systematically under reported in Canada. That means the Canadian death rate is like an upper bound. Assuming ten percent of the world's 6.8 billion inhabitants are infected, then under 680 thousand to 13 million people will die from this. On the Canadian data, I put it at under half a million if the virus does not become more deadly next fall.
MB
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.
Shit, son,
you think I'm done?
You show your lack of wit 'cause I ain't even begun.
Y'all think you got me broken down and beat-ah
but the truth is that I just don't like the heat-ah
I got ways to run around all of your careful treatments
evolution's bit shiftin' my genetic sequence
so just wait until the autumn comes around, then
we'll see who's runnin' in the breaking news again, because we
mutate, mutate and multiply, multiply we
mutate, mutate and multiply, multiply
Crossed species once (oink)
crossed species twice (chirp)
pick up some more alleles, I'll make you wear a mask the rest of your life
which won't be long, 'cause
I'm gettin' stronger
my body count is rising, gonna outdo Mao Zedong with
mutate, mutate and multiply, multiply
mutate, mutate and multiply, multiply
mutate, mutate and multiply, multiply
mutate, mutate and multiply, multiply
I wanna give a shout out to all the H1N1 strains--they may get some of us but they can't get all of us! Much love for my sibs in quarantine, keep hope alive!
Your brain is not a computer.
Interestingly, when I went to the doctor for a persistent fever, coughing, and sore throat, he advised me that I was likely to have an influenza variant but that this health division was no longer doing swabs for H1N1 unless you were admitted to a hospital. This means that, at least in my area, there are probably a great number of cases un-reported, despite having presented themselves to medical personnel with typical symptoms. Oh, and I live in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, home of ~200 cases.
I keep seeing the scenes from resident evil (or any of your cliché pandemic horror movie)
where everybody is turning into _____ (add your sickness) and running through the streets.....
and your trying to get out of the city before you are contaminated as well....and they all run after you...
you got a few seconds head start....quick where do you hide?
that people not get the shot?
if 98% get the shot, and 1,000 die from the shot and only 100 die from the flu, then the shot is a roaring success, considering the amount who would die if no one got the shot
right? or is logic not your strong suit?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
to this airborne epidemic, was to have brochures handed out at airports and tell us to wash our hands. Whereas, other countries had heat-sensing machines where they would quarantine people that had fevers, and hand out masks.
Maybe someone needs to explain to him how these things are spread?
He got lucky, again. I hope for our sake that his luck holds out during the rest of his term.
Sorry, is the suggestion here to do controlled burns?
that's fatalistic
there are many things you can do about H1N1 to protect yourself
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytokine_storm
perversely, the healthier your immunse system, the more likely you are to die from a novel h1n1 pandemic, as your immune systems drowns your own lungs in overreaction. the weaker your immune system, the more likely you are to survive
but please, be my guest, don't get a shot. improve the gene pool by removing the fucking morons from it
a flu shot is a no brainer dumb as nails obvious thing that everyone should get
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
that don't involve becoming a shut in
you are reacting to a radical position that no one is proposing except you
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
OP: Actually [...] you should cover your mouth with the inside of your elbow when you sneeze.
That's obvious, even to non-nurses.
In fact, it's exactly what the GP stated:
GP: Cover your mouth and nose when you sneeze, using a sleeve if you have no tissue
GP states that if you're going to sneeze, you use 1.tissue, or in lieu of a tissue, 2.sleeve. Never does he even offer 'use your hand' as an option.
---
Reading comprehension
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/01/07/health/main535605.shtml
From January 2003, says that the flu kills an estimated 36,000 a year, and last I checked Swine Flu still hadn't killed 100 yet.
Sorry I couldn't find the CDC link for their estimate, Google kept giving me results for only H1N1 and it's late enough that I don't care to keep hunting.
Using the new In-Cell growing technique many companies seem to be coming up with vaccines in a shorter period than earlier. Medicinenet has an informative article on Flu Vaccines and immunization candidates, and goes on to say why they are required. This is a good read to understand why vaccination is being given importance here. The 1918 "Spanish" Flu epidemic Virus which is very similar to the recent outbreak was re-engineered in a laboratory in 2005 by Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger and colleagues at AFIP. Comparison with Avian flu strains led to the conclusion that Human Flu Virus strains are derived from Avian flu virii.
Among young people and children Flu vaccines claim to be 70%-90% effective, while this drops down to 30%-40% in people aged over 65 who may have other secondary complications. Hence the scale of vaccination required for the present outbreak (which has been repeatedly noted for not being as lethal as the 1918 Flu strain) may be entirely different covering only those in a risk category. More stress is on drugs that help in combating the Virus in an infected individual. These are usually amino-acid chain suppressors like Tamiflu. There has already been mobilization and distribution of the drugs to combat such an outbreak. The WHO has done a recent donation of drugs to Nigeria.
The role and importance of the Vaccines that would be available is not yet certain. It seems that the stress is more on treatment. Insofar stress on prevention without the involvement of Primary Medical care personnel. Only those who suspect infection have been requested to visit quarantine or medical facilities for treatment. The WHO's present stand with the Flu Virus has been a direct result of criticism during the second widespread Avian flu H5N1 attack incidents in 2006.
No Greater Friend, No Greater Enemy! (Lucius Cornelius Sulla)
Nah, you Godwin German measles discussions by latching onto the peripheral abortion issue that can be attached.