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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."
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 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?
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?
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?
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.
Someone get this delirious person a flu shot.
... 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.
The WHO claims they are making this level 6 because it is spreading globally and it has nothing to do with the severity. So why don't they do this for any seasonal flu that spreads globally every year?
If you read the legal definitions of what the WHO can do when it is level 6 is very scary. They can take your property, forcibly vaccinate you, quarantine you for an indefinite amount of time all with zero proof of anything.
The few people who have actually died and had swine flu were all very ill before they were infected.
Now for some comedy.
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
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! --
Ricardo Montalbán did hail from Mexico, died, and like a month later, bam, h1n1! Swine flu should be renamed "The Wrath of Khan"!
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.
Er, the 1918 flu pandemic started as a mild but very infectious disease. Then, come autumn, it killed more people than WW1. And mostly young people at that.
Furthermore, maybe you should look up what the word "pandemic" actually means. They're using it correctly. You're not.
Azural - instrumentals
The WHO claims they are making this level 6 because it is spreading globally...
Bah. It's now level six because it camped respawn spots and got the required XP to level.
Thought thinks itself.
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
Most of them, do not cover pandemic cases.
Check your insurance contract.
Cheers!
The vast majority of infection and death happened after WW1, so you're wrong about that.
Another difference from those times to now is air travel, which can see infection spread vastly quicker.
Regarding the meaning of the word "pandemic", I'll take the technical description of people working in that field, thanks very much, and not yours.
The reason I stated that your definition of the word was wrong was not the mentioned of the Black Death, but the "REAL" (sic, in caps) qualifier, suggesting that in your head you have a cut-off death toll for your special definition of the word. This was sorta the point of your post.
But aside from the ad hominems, caps and lack of logic, keep it up, you're doing great.
Azural - instrumentals
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!
Careful. We Germans aren't all smiles and sunshine.
"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."