Possible Swine Flu Pandemic

[Dave N.]

It was on the news this morning from the white house.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_swine_flu_emergency

[oc disorder]

Could be spreading....
News from New Zealand
Swine flu believed to have infected 10 students

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/ar...ectid=10568788

The best things you can do to stop the spread of any type of influenza virus is to:

Stay at home and away from others if you are sick
Cover your coughs and sneezes with a tissue
Put used tissues into a rubbish bin
Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth - germs spread that way
Be careful to wash hands often with soap and dry them thoroughly - hand hygiene is critical: even when you start to feel better there is still a risk of infecting others, so keep to the 20/20 rule - 20 seconds washing and 20 seconds drying
Keep surfaces clean at home, school and work.

[tubeswell]

yep its a case of Panic Schmanick. Some high school kids brought it back with them on the plane from Mexico, and suddenly the govt is issuing all these plague warnings

At times like this its easy to overlook that Swine Flu has been around since at least the 1930s. The last big 'outbreak' in the States was in the '70s. 1 person died. I think more peeps died in Mexico recently unfortunately because the health system is pretty run down there more than anything. What was funny today was a story they ran in the local rag about the 'dire' situation in Mexico City, where they showed a pic of these police in Mexico all wearing different coloured token face masks and all carrying M16s or AK47s or something, presumably in the fight against disease (as if bullets could stop the germs from spreading - duh! Arrrrgggghhhh!!!, the mentality of it all!).

[tedmich]

one cause for concern is the demographic of those dead in Mex; they were in the 20-40yr old age group which is bad because the main death in a pandemic (as in 1918) is this group due to a primed immune over-response (cytokine cascade). Typical flu just kills the young and immune compromised (36k deaths per year in the US) so the 20-40yr old deaths are a fingerprint for potentially BAD pandemics.

US estimates currently 80 from the WHO, 2x the CDC (who has no head because of Rep. filibuster of HHS Sec.)

FYI initial Mexican city with outbreak is site of huge factory farm US pork facility with 50k hogs and long history of waste and untreated effluent...

also Baxter Healthcare shipped combo pig/avian virus worldwide for testing which killed one tech in eastern europe.

also guy who hosted Obama in Mex last week died with flu like symptoms...