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Passengers Cheat Flu Scan With Fever Reducers
Nguyen Van Chau, head of Ho Chi Minh City's Health Department, has revealed that many sick passengers who flew to Ho Chi Minh City used fever reducers to fool temperature scanners at the airport. The government has confirmed 26 people infected with H1N1 flu, 23 of whom came by air after traveling in the United States or Australia. State media reports that the discovery of these scanner cheaters led to the detection of several infected cases later.
If they avoided detection by the offending scanner, then how were they detected to be scanner cheaters?
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
Once swine flu or H1N1 is mentioned all logic and reason goes out the window. Didn't you know that?
.. who are taking 'fever reducers' are not cheating as they have no way of knowing whether or not they have the H1N1 virus. Furthermore I have the uneasy feeling that at some point, 'fever reducers' will be pulled off the shelves and H1N1 vaccination will be required. JMHO
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Anecdotal, of course... but a coworker of mine flew to China last week and took tylenol and cough medicine specifically to reduce the chance that he'd exhibit symptoms that could be mistaken for the flu. His travel agent suggested he do this, since if one person on the plane exhibited flu symptoms, all the passengers would have been quarantined for 7 days.
Asian countries (like South Korea and China) are primed to respond quickly and strongly to pandemic threats, due to their recent experience with the avian flu.
Another coworker of mine was supposed to fly to China to visit family this summer... her friends and family have told her that they won't see her if she goes, since there are confirmed cases of H1N1 Mexican flu in our area. So she's putting off the trip until the vaccine is available.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Correct. There is nothing mystical about H1N1. It's a strain of the extremely common influenza A virus. You know influenza A well, you've probably had at least several times in your life. It's the flu. This is just a new strain. It's not any worse (or better) than any other strain of influenza A. All this hand-waving about H1N1 is stupid and pointless. Anybody with half a brain could tell you that, yes, you can carry the flu for several days without showing any symptoms whatsoever.
There were 45,000 cases of the of the swine flu in the U.S. and I think like 25 people died. That's a fatality rate of what? A half of a tenth of a percent? About the same fatality rate for any other strain of influenza A.
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H1N1 Type A is "much nastier" than what?
Most of the reports that I have seen in the US are pretty clear that H1N1 Type A is no more virulent than the seasonal flu, and no more likely to cause death in the US cases. This was clear from all public reports in the US very early on. There was some difficulty in analysis because the Mexican cases appeared to indicate a much more virulent disease; I suspect that the post-game analysis will show other factors were at work including nutritional status of patients, other illnesses, etc.
The much over-hyped "pandemic" status merely indicates the scope of infection, not the potential death toll.
Sorry to post two responses, but I forgot another significant issue.
A lot of countries require incoming travelers to answer some questions about their health, to help prevent the spread of disease. Not sure if the country in question is currently doing this, but I suspect they are.
So you won't be allowed to board the plane unless you answer "no" when asked if you've had any symptoms of illness.
So the fact that they took a fever-reducer means they knew they were ill; the fact that they answered no to the question means they knew they weren't supposed to travel while ill; so the the conclusion is that they took the antipyretic partly to avoid detection.
Assuming, of course, that the country in question requires incoming travelers to answer the questions about illness.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
It's very important to note that the death statistics are misleading.
Because of the enormous attention paid to this flu variant, the level of medical care has been much higher than normal. Furthermore, the season may reduce casualties due to reduced incidence of secondary infections, etc.
Because the casualty level is in line with "normal" flue variants, but mitigating factors mentioned above are present, it's very likely that this strain *is* deadlier than the typical strains.
Furthermore, for countries with lower standards of medical care, or other factors that increase severity (like poor nutrition and sanitary conditions, for example), this strain could have disastrous impact -- especially if it is spreading like wildfire come winter in the northern hemisphere.
In short -- yes, the media has whipped up a frenzy. But, prevention of infection is still a worthy goal, and *some* extra attention is probably a good thing.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I'm sorry but when it comes to the golden rule, my decision is for them to GTFO till they are well. Coming in 'infectious' sick, regardless of the motivation, is irresponsible and selfish and I'm not willing to put my own wellfare on the line for your paycheck.
Being sent home means:
A. You get the rest needed to recover more quickly
B1. You aren't at work doing a halfassed job because that's all you can do with the energy you have left.
B2. I'm not forced to spend time fixing your halfassed work.
And I'm willing to bet that the amount of work I have to sholder to cover you being out sick would be far less then the amount of work I'd have to sholder to clean up your mess when half assed isn't enough to make it work. Especially since if you are coming in to work sick, you'll probablly be sick longer than if you just took a day off and got over it.
Yes, if you work in a place that does not provide paid sick days, that's unfortunate. But it's worse of a problem if you manage to infect the rest of the office, putting us all in a half dead state.
And I'm hoping, were I the one coming in sick, my coworkers would say the same.
I agree with this wholeheartedly. Our first daughter we went out of our way to make sure she had social interaction and played in dirt, etc. Then my second daughter was born and we found out she had Kostman's Syndrome (Rare disorder where you can't make the white blood cells that fight off bacteria). We went from an attitude of letting our daughter play with anything she wanted and not caring to being one of those families that has hand sanitizer outside the door so visitors washed their hands before entering the house.
I like to say that we reinstalled her immune system (Bone Marrow Transplant) and she is one of the few who has no side effects at all after a transplant, so we're back to letting them (both) play in as much dirt and sharing of waterbottles, etc.
People work out to keep in shape, why not give your immune system a workout too?
Do you Gentoo!?
Not for H1N1 but just for a milder flu, I took acetaminophen in mainland China(Guangdong) to get pass the checkpoint at the Hong Kong border. I had a flight leaving out of Hong Kong soon and wanted to get the hell out of China (I don't like it there).
The scanned me with a simple temp probe, check my passport and let me pass. Being held for observation at some random security check point in a strange country(to me) would have really sucked, especially given that I was not feeling well at all.
I likely spread my illness for 3 days before I even felt sick. So those checkpoints are not effective enough to matter, in my opinion.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Any illness will cause fatalities. Swine flu does kill people. Exposing all of us might "build character" and it might make us resistant to the next strain (but probably not). And it will kill people.
So you can ask us to be less careful about contamination, but when your kid dies on a respirator, will it be any comfort that our immune systems are somehow stronger because of it?
Look- Nothing has changed about us or about the flu in general since the early parts of the 20th century when flu epidemics killed hundreds of thousands. Our careful contamination avoidance, handwashing, hygiene, etc mean that these strains of flu DON'T knock us on our collective asses. You might as well complain that clothes make us prone to bad weather or that being rich makes you prone to being poor. Our lack of sickness is a sign of GOOD health, not poor as I believe you meant.
-b
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.
Call me ignorant, naive, or a fool, but a story such as this scares me. If I get sick I go to see my family doctor, make sure it is nothing overly serious, and if it is I do as he says which almost always requires a few days away from work. By the same token my co-workers only need to call in and let us know what is going on, we will cover them. Before anybody claims I have some sort of dream job, let me assure you it is not. I work 12 hours a day in a god forsaken hell pit for just over minimum wage to pay for my going to school, no paid sick days, and I need to work 2 jobs to make it by. That said, I don't worry about calling in sick because I don't want to get my friends, nor customers sick, and if I need i cut my food intake, walk instead of take the bus, or do what I have to do to make it work. There is not a single excuse for coming into work and getting somebody else sick.
I'm sorry I'd rather risk infecting a few people with a minor cough instead of going without water next week because the bill's due and today's hours on my paycheck are what I was counting on to pay it.
If I'm sick I do my best to reduce my symptoms and keep myself away from direct contact with clients, so that I'm NOT going into someone's home (I am a social worker) coughing and sneezing all over myself or their kids. But I don't get free vacation days with which to recover, so forgive me if I find your selfishness just as ignoble as mine. If I have to make the choice between going to work with a cough so that I can pay my bills, and staying home to "get better" (which often doesn't happen in a day anyway) and giving up income that could have provided me with a better cough suppressant or paid my electric bill so I stay warm... screw my co-workers, I'm going to work. Anyone who works with people knows that the best way to avoid sickness is to wash your hands, keep them away from your face at all times and simply avoid people showing signs of illness to the best of your ability to do so. If they come to your desk and cough on you, I find it perfectly acceptable to lodge a complaint about hygiene with the boss, but sending them home when they may need to work to keep themselves fed is thoughtlessly cruel.
Ditto.
I was once (a long time ago) working in a warehouse for the largest big-box store in the world. I got sick. Really sick. I wasn't paid well, and had no insurance. I couldn't opt for the company funded insurance because my pay was so low that it barely covered rent in my crappy apartment, food, and gas to get to/from work.
I had a 105 fever. I was barely coherent most of the time, and hallucinating at other times. In my periods of lucidity, I recorded my temperature, which was floating from about 104.9 to 105.9. I did apparently manage to make it to the bathroom to vomit, but all I really remember is vivid colors, people who didn't exist, and finding myself wandering around the apparent reason. I wasn't coherent enough to drive anywhere (or to even realize that I should), and freezing cold in the apartment that was at 85 degrees. I was taking OTC cold medicine, because that's all that we had, and we had no money to pay for a doctor visit and pay for prescriptions.
I was like that for 3 days. When I went back to work, I was written up because I had didn't have a doctor's note. I reminded them that I wasn't paid enough to afford a doctor, but that didn't help matters either. All I had was my temperature log, which they didn't believe. The cold wasn't over, I continued with a low grade fever for several more days, dragging myself in to work every day because my body ached, my head was pounding, and I was still switching from chills to sweats about every 30 minutes. If I hadn't, I would have been fired (they were kind enough to tell me so too).
No, not everyone has the luxury to say "no", stay home, and be sick in the comfort of their own homes. Really if you're out of town for work, most people can't afford a hotel on their own dime for several days until they're better, and their bosses won't appreciate that they extended their "trip". Maybe it'll come out of sick leave, or maybe it'll come out of vacation time, or maybe they'll just consider that you didn't show up to work and fire you for that.
Sometimes even in the luxury of high paid corporate America, you can't take the luxury either. When you have staff world wide, and representatives from the various divisions are coming into town for a meeting that your important to, saying "no, I'm sick, reschedule it" doesn't fly. For many places, saying "I'll call in, put me on speaker phone" doesn't work either. They flew in for face time, and you, the good employee, will provide that face time no matter what. Unless you're in the hospital in a coma, you'll be there.
Nice work places will say "oh, you're sick, no problem, call in for the meeting", or "we'll reschedule for a few days from now, they'll enjoy the time to work with our staff". Not every place is so good about that. It would be nice if they were.
From what I understand, in some countries you can take indefinite "sick" leave, without doctor's note nor explanation. After your regular leave is up, you then earn 50%. After a period, the gov't pays it. When you're "better", you can just show back up to work, and they're obliged to give you either your original position back, or a comparable one. I knew someone like that. He suffered from depression, didn't leave the house for 2 years, and was still getting paid. He went back to work for a few months, and then the "depression" started up again. I think it was more that he was abusing the system, but there are plenty of people who do that. I prefer to work for pay. I don't feel society owes me anything, unless I do something for them in return.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
For the same reason you don't get someone to drop you a 1000 pound weight to lift, when it's way beyond what you should be lifting, in the name of "improving your strength". You use ordinary amounts of weight (amounts that it doesn't hurt to lift), and you spread out over time, rather than taking an extreme.
Because some infections (like certain strains of influenza) attack the body in unique ways, can do permanent long-term damage, that may or may not be well-understood, e.g. cause some damage to the nervous system, or organs, which you may (or may not) be able to perceive immediately.
e.g. Influenza has been known to spread to the brain, in the worst case can cause hemoraging and death.
Strengthening the immune system is an admirable goal, but it should not be done at just any cost. That cost could result in a reduction in lifespan or other loss.
The immune system gets strong enough in ordinary exposures, you don't need to subject it to extreme conditions.
You definitely should not seek extensive exposure to known-infected individuals, individuals with possibly severe illness should definitely not be allowed to be in confined places with many people...
Playing in the dirt is a pretty bad idea, not just because of microbial issues, but b/c of possibilities of worms and fungal parasites (the type that can't be dealt with by the immune system)
I don't advocate spraying everything with disinfectants and avoiding all microbes, but use reason. Don't take either extreme.