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Swine Flu

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The problem with all these different flu's is that mass hysteria takes over and suddenly everyone has swine flu. Paranoid people who have flu like symptoms, which in this weather is pretty bloody common, suddenly assume that they must have swine flu. They then report to a hospital to be checked for swine flu, raising the level of 'suspected cases'. As the level of suspected cases rises, so does the assumption that everyone with a cold must have swine flu also.

We live in a world of incredible intellect, and it's impossible to compare our current time to the comparably primitive ages of past pandemic flu's. The worst possible scenario will not even come close to that of the Spanish equivalent 80 odd years ago, just because the knowledge we have is far too great.

Ultimately, Bodicifer is spot on, when you have sheep just a few metres away, why are you ****ing a pig?

EDIT: To further my point of comparison between today and past times, as LtD pointed out, secondary infections are the major cause of death, something which is made more likely from poor environmental conditions and almost everything you can think of that is different today than it was 80 years ago.
 
rickyp said:
The problem with all these different flu's is that mass hysteria takes over and suddenly everyone has swine flu. Paranoid people who have flu like symptoms, which in this weather is pretty bloody common, suddenly assume that they must have swine flu. They then report to a hospital to be checked for swine flu, raising the level of 'suspected cases'. As the level of suspected cases rises, so does the assumption that everyone with a cold must have swine flu also.

We live in a world of incredible intellect, and it's impossible to compare our current time to the comparably primitive ages of past pandemic flu's. The worst possible scenario will not even come close to that of the Spanish equivalent 80 odd years ago, just because the knowledge we have is far too great.

Ultimately, Bodicifer is spot on, when you have sheep just a few metres away, why are you ****ing a pig?

EDIT: To further my point of comparison between today and past times, as LtD pointed out, secondary infections are the major cause of death, something which is made more likely from poor environmental conditions and almost everything you can think of that is different today than it was 80 years ago.
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Co-infection or secondary infections are a major cause of death with influenza - true. However, not all occur fom poor environmental conditions and 80 year ago medicine. Why do you think they have introduced free flu vaccinations for under 5's here in WA? Just 2 years ago 4 preschool aged children died within weeks of each of from the co-infection of the strain of seasonal influenza A and and a seemingly mild strepococus b group bug. A strep bug that most people carry in their throats without even becoming ill. Combined together they killed otherwise normal healthy kiddies from your average suburban background. In that same year, the same influenza A infected my son's kindergarten and out of 20 children, 9 kids (7 of which had vaccinations against it) didn't fall ill. 11 children were ill and off school for 3 weeks with this flu. A seasonal flu.
 
morgoth said:
Every once in awhile, those of us who watch the big picture and report to you that government is planning something REALLY bad, are vindicated. Such is the case right now.
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i.e.: "I make hundreds of vague predictions with no set time frame or specific outcome. This one looks close enough to something I may or may not have once said so I will claim it as proof of my prescience."
 
Whilst the epidemic in Mexico is certainly concerning and makes it necessary for governments to prepare for the worst, I really don't see the point in raising panic at this time.

It seems that we spend most of our lives jumping at shadows. If we are not scared by the threat of terrorism, maybe disease will do it. If not that, I'm sure that enough can be convinced that they will lose their jobs. What about those who work for themselves? The environment should take care of them.

I'm not saying that we should not be concerned, vigilant and proactively address these things but it seems that there are some people will not be satisfied unless the world is in a perpetual state of hysteria.
 

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MrMeaner said:
Whilst the epidemic in Mexico is certainly concerning and makes it necessary for governments to prepare for the worst, I really don't see the point in raising panic at this time.

It seems that we spend most of our lives jumping at shadows. If we are not scared by the threat of terrorism, maybe disease will do it. If not that, I'm sure that enough can be convinced that they will lose their jobs. What about those who work for themselves? The environment should take care of them.

I'm not saying that we should not be concerned, vigilant and proactively address these things but it seems that there are some people will not be satisfied unless the world is in a perpetual state of hysteria.
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Like Alan Didak and Rhyce Shaw !!!!

I agree. Caution without the hysteria. However, that doesn't sell papers !
 
Bunnie said:
Co-infection or secondary infections are a major cause of death with influenza - true. However, not all occur fom poor environmental conditions and 80 year ago medicine. Why do you think they have introduced free flu vaccinations for under 5's here in WA? Just 2 years ago 4 preschool aged children died within weeks of each of from the co-infection of the strain of seasonal influenza A and and a seemingly mild strepococus b group bug. A strep bug that most people carry in their throats without even becoming ill. Combined together they killed otherwise normal healthy kiddies from your average suburban background. In that same year, the same influenza A infected my son's kindergarten and out of 20 children, 9 kids (7 of which had vaccinations against it) didn't fall ill. 11 children were ill and off school for 3 weeks with this flu. A seasonal flu.
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Generally, the traditional flu season the happens each year presents a risk predominately to the young and the old and those with underlying conditions like diabetes.

There is a theory that many suscribe to that because young children and teenagers dont conduct constant hand washing that they can act as "super spreaders". Vaccinating them is likely to prevent this as long as the strains in the vaccination match those circulating in the community.
 
Dry Rot said:
A balanced article explaining the raised WHO level

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/4/27/725137/-WHO,-Phase-Four-And-Uncertainty
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The best place for information you can rely on is CDC and your state and local public health department. Yeah, you should have funded them better, and you'll have the opportunity to do so in future. For now, treat them like the professionals they are and check back with them frequently in this evolving situation.
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Instead of looking to news headlines, which invariably focus on the most extreme estimates and possibilities no matter how likely they are, it's time to actually read the website of your local public health services.
 
Exactly, people should only quote from reliable sources, unfortunately 99% of news services do not classify as reliable sources.

Dry Rot seems to be getting some perverse enjoyment from updating us on how dire the situation is going to be. Anyone who suggests otherwise is immediately shut down.
 
LIONS then DAYLIGHT said:
Exactly, people should only quote from reliable sources, unfortunately 99% of news services do not classify as reliable sources.

Dry Rot seems to be getting some perverse enjoyment from updating us on how dire the situation is going to be. Anyone who suggests otherwise is immediately shut down.
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Here you go, another balanced article explaining that it could be a minor event like 1976.

1918’s Killer Pandemic Provides Cautionary Tale, Global Plans

By Elizabeth Lopatto

April 28 (Bloomberg) -- Doctors don’t know yet if the swine flu that’s killed at least 149 people in Mexico is more like the 1918 form of influenza that left 50 million people dead, or a 1976 version that was fatal to just one......
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http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aAa5e4T9G04o&refer=us
 

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LIONS then DAYLIGHT said:
The Spanish Flu was a totally different beast in more ways then one. A lot of the literature (Ie, scientific journals) based on research has concluded that one of the reasons why the death rate was so high in the 1918 flu was due to secondary bacterial pneumonia. Ie, the flu didn't actaully kill them, rather it was infections that followed that were unable to be treated. These days we have antibiotics, that is a significant difference that is being overlooked. Sources here have to be reliable, anything that isn't from the CDC or WHO or a reputable journal shouldn't be linked. A little information is a dangerous thing.

Im not going to cite sources specifically, because most people here don't want to trawl through online science journals and i cant be arsed logging on to seach databases to look them up.

A lot of those deaths in Mexico could well be explained by "co-infection". Sometimes individual infections by themselves are mild, however Mexico has some sub-optimal living conditions and as such those people that died could have been exposed to another virus which has had a synergistic effect.

The fact that no deaths have occured outside Mexico so far indicates that this may be the case.

No need to start going over-board with the dooms day articles with scientists trying to out do each other with wild statements backed up by no EMPRICAL evidence.
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Many think that suffering a cytokine storm is the culprit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytokine_storm

...Should H5N1 become the next pandemic strain, the resultant morbidity and mortality could rival those of 1918, when more than half the deaths occurred among largely healthy people between 18 and 40 years of age and were caused by a virus-induced cytokine storm (see diagram) that led to the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).4 The ARDS-related morbidity and mortality in the pandemic of 1918 was on a different scale from those of 1957 and 1968 — a fact that highlights the importance of the virulence of the virus subtype or genotype....
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http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/352/18/1839

Scientists have suggested that the cytokine storm played a role in the high death rate in the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic and is playing a similar role in human cases of H5N1 infection today. Autopsies of H5N1 avian flu victims in Vietnam and elsewhere have revealed lungs choked with debris from excessive inflammation triggered by the virus. Similar severe lung damage was frequently reported in victims of the 1918 pandemic, which disproportionately killed people with the strongest immune systems—young, healthy adults...
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http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/panflu/news/jun1406cytokine.html

Will swine flu go down this path? Who knows - could be mild or sever as above.
 
A dear friend of mine is studying in Mexico. Her final two weeks of classes for the semester have been called off as of yesterday. She and her friends were having a few drinks to celebrate when I skyped.
 
rickyp said:
We live in a world of incredible intellect, and it's impossible to compare our current time to the comparably primitive ages of past pandemic flu's. The worst possible scenario will not even come close to that of the Spanish equivalent 80 odd years ago, just because the knowledge we have is far too great.

EDIT: To further my point of comparison between today and past times, as LtD pointed out, secondary infections are the major cause of death, something which is made more likely from poor environmental conditions and almost everything you can think of that is different today than it was 80 years ago.
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We live in a world where our medications are rapidly becoming useless to treat the new viruses being presented to us. For all our intellect - we can't cure HIV, resistant TB (Which is on the rise) and some of the real shockers like MRSA and the like. It's naive to suggest that the worst could not come close to Spanish flu. It could indeed go way past it.

Vast regions of the worlds population still live in the same types of conditions that our grandparents experienced and our supplies of medicines are not all encompassing.

We are of course nowhere near any of this and truth be told we probably wont get near it either. At the end of the day this is simply a novel flu. It's new and it's killing the strong - that's why they are worried.
 

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Curious and more curious...

WHO says only seven confirmed swine flu deaths


  • April 29, 2009 - 11:21AM
A member of the World Health Organisation (WHO) has dismissed claims that more than 150 people have died from swine flu, saying it has officially recorded only seven deaths around the world.

Reports have put the likely death toll from the virus at 152, with Mexican officials confirming 20 deaths.

The number of cases under observation in Mexico alone has reportedly reached 1,614.

But 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 Organisation," Ms Allan told ABC Radio on Wednesday morning.

"That figure is not a figure that's come from the World Health Organisation and, I repeat, the death toll is seven and they are all from Mexico."

Ms Allan said WHO had confirmed 40 cases of swine flu in the Americas, 26 in Mexico, six in Canada, two in Spain, two in the UK and three in New Zealand.

Ms Allan said it was difficult to measure how fast the virus was spreading.

She said a real concern would be if the flu virus manifested in a country where a person had had no contact with Mexico, and authorities were watching all countries for signs of that.

"There is no pattern that has emerged at this stage to be able to say that it is spreading in a particular way or it is spreading into a particular country ... the situation is continuing to evolve," she said.

She said the WHO was not recommending against overseas travel, but urged those who felt sick to stay home and others to ensure they kept their hands clean.

No decision had yet been made about vaccinations.

"This virus is not airborne, it's caused by droplets ... so it's not a time for worry. It's a time to be prepared," Ms Allan said.

AAP
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Jafa said:
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How the hell did you even post this??? Nothing in the quote tags, nothing in the message - do you have some sort of vBulletin super powers??? :eek:
 
So the WHO have only confirmed a handful of cases, going blah blah blah about being watchful...but then go and raise their alert level anyway...? Me thinks someone thinks this possible pandemic could be the real deal (without the empirical evidence YET to back it up) but is covering their arse in case they pushed the panic button too soon. Nice. Gotta love an each way bet. :thumbsu:
 
Bunnie said:
So the WHO have only confirmed a handful of cases, going blah blah blah about being watchful...but then go and raise their alert level anyway...? Me thinks someone thinks this possible pandemic could be the real deal (without the empirical evidence YET to back it up) but is covering their arse in case they pushed the panic button too soon. Nice. Gotta love an each way bet. :thumbsu:
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Maybe this is the voice of mass hysteria speaking, but the huge revision in death toll downwards is actually one of the more unnerving things about the last few days. Usually once the media cranks up, it just goes to fever pitch and everything is blown out of proportion until the dust settles, but there is such a big difference between the media and the WHO in this case I wonder whether there is a bit of propaganda from the latter going on.

Basically, either -
a.) the media have totally overreacted to this, or
b.) the situation in Mexico is so dire that the WHO feels the need to hose stuff down and try and quell mass panic.

I hope its the former rather than the latter, but I think we will know either way inside a week or two.
 

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