The Swine Flu

[socalscout]

I was reading about the Swine Flu on the CDC and other websites and I have found out that:

• It has the same symptoms of any other flu we deal with yearly during “Flu season”

• It has no special resistance than any other flu and is susceptible to current medications just like other flus

• Is not anymore contagious than any other flu

• Over 30k people die a year from any flu and this one is no more deadly

What is the big deal? Why the hysteria and panic? I can see this can be serious in undeveloped countries but why are we going crazy here?

Edited April 30, 2009 by socalscout

[Winchester]

I'm thinking it's essentially a trial run by WHO to see if they can contain this and how people react. It's a trackable, new version so the data from this run can help when we get something serious.

[dUSt]

Because the news can't report on juicy new Hollywood gossip because all the stars are beating them to it by Twittering.

So, the country will go into panic, schools and businesses will close, airlines go bankrupt, eventually leading to the total collapse of our infrastructure, and the hostile takeover of our fragile nation by China.

All because of Twitter. Who would have thunk.

[socalscout]

[quote name='dUSt' post='1853095' date='Apr 30 2009, 08:38 AM']Because the news can't report on juicy new Hollywood gossip because all the stars are beating them to it by Twittering.

So, the country will go into panic, schools and businesses will close, airlines go bankrupt, eventually leading to the total collapse of our infrastructure, and the hostile takeover of our fragile nation by China.

All because of Twitter. Who would have thunk.[/quote]


Oooooooh evil Twitter and its minions.

[Lounge Daddy]

Bird flu. Swine flu. It all makes good news.

And Governments like to use fear as well. They need you to need them. They tried hammering away at the economy -- but it didn't scare people as much as it did make people angry. So now they can talk up this flu.

Yet, "[url="http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-sci-swine-reality30-2009apr30,0,3606923.story"]scientists find this flu strain relatively mild." [/url]

[quote]In fact, the current outbreak of the H1N1 virus, which emerged in San Diego and southern Mexico late last month, may not even do as much damage as the run-of-the-mill flu outbreaks that occur each winter without much fanfare.[/quote]

[Lounge Daddy]

And it still kills me that although Mexico is claiming to have buried so many people who had died of this flu, [url="http://www.smh.com.au/world/only-7-swine-flu-deaths-not-152-says-who-20090429-aml1.html"]the World Health Organization is saying that only 7 actually died from it[/url]. Which makes it not at all that different from any other flu outbreak. Is it their Government overstating the deaths? Their press? Both?

[quote]Vivienne Allan, from WHO's patient safety program, said the body had confirmed that worldwide there had been just seven deaths - all in Mexico - and 79 confirmed cases of the disease.

"Unfortunately that [150-plus deaths] is incorrect information and it does happen, but that's not information that's come from the World Health Organization," Ms Allan told ABC Radio today.[/quote]

The press here in Grand Rapids was reporting a case of swine flu here. But a few days later the story was retracted -- it was only ordinary flu. But this so-called "swine flu" seems to be a lot like ordinary flu anyway.

[Archaeology cat]

Interesting. Thanks, LD. I personally get worried about any flu, since DH has asthma. But that's just me.

[Brother Adam]

Educational institution inside information - Actually 20,000 people die a year from flu related complications, not from the flu itself. There is a certain level of hysteria that there is no place for with this outbreak, however, there is a real possibility of a pandemic that could lead to millions of deaths like previous flu outbreaks. It is better to be over prepared - like actually enforcing people to go home when they get sick, making kids wash their hands and throw their tissue paper away after they sneeze.

[CatherineM]

One of the reasons this kind of thing scares people is that the 35,000+ people who die every year of the flu are usually the elderly and infirm. This flu, like the 1918 one, is killing healthy people in their prime.

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='CatherineM' post='1853159' date='Apr 30 2009, 01:06 PM']One of the reasons this kind of thing scares people is that the 35,000+ people who die every year of the flu are usually the elderly and infirm. This flu, like the 1918 one, is killing healthy people in their prime.[/quote]
Agreed, that was the hallmark of the 1918 flu.
And gentlemen [ not CatherineM ] are missing the point.
This is novel virus combining avain - human - swine flu characteristics - so we have no natural immunity to this one. Mild or not it is the flu, so you can still spend several days flat on your back with vomiting diarrhea coughing etc. As you recover slowly and feel like croutons - you are open to every secondary infection that comes down the pike - particularly pneumonia.
And since it it contagious and we have no immunity - imagine 2/3 of the population of your town flat on their back [i]at the same time [/i]. When the 1918 flu hit - 50,000 people in Pittsburgh area were afflicted at the same time. Flu is also notorious for mutating quickly. The first wave of flu in 1918 was in the spring and mild, it returned mutated in the fall and was deadly. 100 million people died in those 2 years from the flu.
When SARS hit southeast Asia - it had a mortality of 60%.

So yeah - there is reason to take it seriously.

[Ziggamafu]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' post='1853166' date='Apr 30 2009, 11:21 AM']Agreed, that was the hallmark of the 1918 flu.
And you are missing the point.
This is novel virus combining avain - human - swine flu characteristics - so we have no natural immunity to this one. Mild or not it is the flu, so you can still spend several days flat on your back with vomiting diarrhea coughing etc. As you recover slowly and feel like croutons - you are open to every secondary infection that comes down the pike - particularly pneumonia.
And since it it contagious and we have no immunity - imagine 2/3 of the population of your town flat on their back [i]at the same time [/i]. When the 1918 flu hit - 50,000 people in Pittsburgh area were afflicted at the same time. Flu is also notorious for mutating quickly. The first wave of flu in 1918 was in the spring and mild, it returned mutated in the fall and was deadly. 100 million people died in those 2 years from the flu.
When SARS hit southeast Asia - it had a mortality of 60%.

So yeah - there is reason to take it seriously.[/quote]

Exactly. Those with access to healthcare in the U.S. do not have too much to fear in regards to deaths; however, in an economy that is already teetering on its edge, this is the last thing we need.

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='Ziggamafu' post='1853180' date='Apr 30 2009, 01:42 PM']Exactly. Those with access to healthcare in the U.S. do not have too much to fear in regards to deaths; however, in an economy that is already teetering on its edge, this is the last thing we need.[/quote]
Think of the millions without healthcare - and this is an airborne virus.

[Lounge Daddy]

An airborn virus that has killed, according to the WHO, only 7 people. Yet [url="http://www.cdc.gov/flu/keyfacts.htm"]36,000 people die from the flu every year[/url].

The only people that want fear are the newspapers, so they can sell more newspapers, and the State, so people can empower them.

[SaintOlaf]

[quote name='Lounge Daddy' post='1853184' date='Apr 30 2009, 01:54 PM']An airborn virus that has killed, according to the WHO, only 7 people. Yet [url="http://www.cdc.gov/flu/keyfacts.htm"]36,000 people die from the flu every year[/url].

The only people that want fear are the newspapers, so they can sell more newspapers, and the State, so people can empower them.[/quote]

Newspaper's here in Detroit are doing so poorly, they just stopped home delivery of the Detroit News and Free Press on weekdays, and the papers are so thin... they certainly can use this to their advantage.

[Lounge Daddy]

[url="http://wcco.com/specialreports/human.animal.flu.2.996893.html"]60 percent of pathogens travel from animals to humans[/url]. So this is nothing new.

The [url="http://www.examiner.com/a-1497121~Bird_flu_mutates_during_race_against_time_to_find_vaccine.html"]"bird flu" mutated also[/url], and then the news dropped the story when nothing "newsworthy" became of it.