House chores here - putting in insulation before it gets too hot out. then off to read a book.

missed the obama show. anything good this week?

Jonathan-
That all depends on who you ask...

Good thinking on the insulation. I recently put in thermal curtains- it's made my home much more cozy.

I can only speak for myself, my opinion comes from seeing the same pattern year after year. If there ever really is a serious epidemic then I will miss it because the reporter cried wolf too many times.
I am worried about MRSAs though because of things I learned in my bio classes.



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/med_swine_flu
Ok really?
It says here that 99 people in all of Mexico have it. That doesn't seem like enough to me to be crying "pandemic." Just my opinion, but it really seems reactionary to me.
I bet more people than that have colds in all of my state. I guess there's a Rhinovirodemic.
Panic won't do anything but hurt the economy.

I telephoned the hospital to ask about the Swine flu but all I could hear was crackling.

Tommy, that's the sound of frying bacon, I bet...

Critter- that's 99 confirmed cases. That means they took a biological sample from the victim back to a lab, ran it through a centrifuge, did a DNA analysis on the material, and proved that the virus was the H1N1 swine flu.

It takes the United States CDC days to perform those tests, not hours. Now imagine the situation in Mexico City, which, sad to say, does not necessarily have the best labs and medical equipment. Add to that the fact that the Mexico Health Department didn't even bother to question the families and take samples from many of the victims. There's at least 163 dead from suspected cases of swine flu. We may never know how many cases there really are in Mexico.

Given that the same strain has been detected all over the world, the WHO may be erring on the side of caution by declaring a pandemic. But it's worrisome how quickly it seems to be spreading; and the death toll in Mexico, mixed with a lot of uncertainty, plus the still brief amount of time this has been seen in other countries warrants some raised eyebrows.

If nothing comes of it, we'll consider ourselves lucky, or maybe shout about crying wolf. But if it turns out this thing is Captain Trips, and the WHO took no action, well, if you get the Captain Trips reference, you've read Stephen King's "The Stand"...

There are thousands of cases in Mexico, they simply haven't tested them to be able to confirm them ... there are limits to how much can be done. I suspect they test xx number of samples from a particular hot spot (ie: a specific school) and if it is positive they assume the rest of the flu cases there are also positive.

It is not a question of is this a pandemic, the problem is how much damage this flu could cause if it is indeed a pandemic. Because this flu is so deadly, it has the potential to wipe out a significant portion of the population.

-JoeJoe

This flu is so deadly???? Hardly. 7 deaths in Mexico? None elsewhere??? More than 16,000 dead from NORMAL flu reactions with NO panic?

"...it has the potential to wipe out a significant portion of the population."

http://www.smh.com.au/world/only-7-swine......ml1.html

What? Holy crap man where you get that? Based on what? Most of the results are MILD reactions that go away in a day or so.




Like I posted elsewhere:

These 'results' you mention, to ME rather than seem ominous of a potential health disaster seem more like an over reaction by Govt. and media. I can think that because of the COUNTLESS over reactions I've seen over the years since I was a kid.

So far look at what is going on...a small amount of people in the USA are MILDLY ill and get over it in a day or so.

It is now reported that there were 7 deaths in Mexico confirmed not 152.(where the health care is very minimal) Meanwhile the Mexico economy is being RAPED...the US Govt is putting in gear another boondoggle of major dollars being spent...(In 1976 42 million people were shot with anti virus for a virus that never showed up! Over a thousand people though were paralized from a faulty virus because it was RUSHED.)

Europe is going through hoops...airlines are in turmoil as are cruise ships and schools and businesses and people's schedules and relationships and military operations and on and on...based on what? 7 deaths in Mexico? SEVEN? Where are the deaths in Asia? France? USA? (besides the kid FROM Mexico who was brought here SICK?) Meanwhile there have been HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of deaths from heart disease...ansd most importantly: Tens of thousands of deaths from regular old every day flu.

The world is on an insanity kick. Sure it COULD be a dangerous strain...but panic set in before it was even determined if was even mildly uncomfortable. So...being old and seeing this happen so many times I tend to FOLLOW THE MONEY. Selling newspapers is one direction to look at. Govt. power trips is another area to look askance at before getting all worked up over what? Nothing so far...NOTHING...except newspaper headlines and inept Govt. over reactions.

There's a very old joke that goes...

An old bull and a young bull are standing on a hill. They are looking down at a herd of Female Cows. The young Bull says "Let's RUN down there and get ONE of 'em!" And the Old Bull say's, "Let's WALK down and get All of 'em".

Sure be concerned I supopose or at least cautious so you don't get sick...but fear? Of what? However, as to the stupidity of those we look to for guidence, be very afraid.

I think that the threat is very real to those living in third world countries. If you are living in a developed nation you will have access to clean water and medicine. It won't be fun, but you will recover. However, that does not mean the US is unscathed.

For too many years we've relied on third world sweat shops like the Jamaican free zone to stitch together our tighty whities. You get women and children working all day over there for $15 a week. You can't even produce with robots that cheap. And then you flip the product and everyone gets a cut of the cake marking up and marking up until it comes time for the hapless citizen to buy this product in the super market where they pay the $15 for three briefs. That's right! When you purchased one pack of underwear, just one, you paid for a weeks salary in the Jamaican free zone!

My only point is that there are a LOT of people in this world with absolutely no talent or redeeming skills that have managed to squeeze into a position where they can profit off slavery. If the slaves get sick and die, entire clumps of the US market will get cut off. Huge chains of no talent, bureaucratic, international slum lords will go without pay.

When you hear reporters on the news talking about the 'economic' impact of the flu, this is what they are talking about.

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

I am not sure "pandemic" is even the right word to be using.

"Worrying"
I worried about Ebola and E.Coli
I worried about Killer Bees and Mad Cow Disease
I worried about SARs and West Nile
Really wasn't worth my while
I worried about Bird Flu and Swine Flu
Is there Seal Flu in Igloos?
I worried so much that by the time I died
I'd forgot to even have a life.
-critter

We got a phone call from my mother-in-law last night, who was very concerned, telling us to "avoid Mexicans" (which is stupid and somewhat racist- human-to-human transmission means anyone could have it), and that the virus could survive for many days on surfaces (unproven, and unlikely.) There's a lot of mis-information going around out there. Case in point- I was googling to try and find out how long it takes for lab results on flu strains to come back showing positive or negative for H1N1; the number two result for "swine flu test lab" was a conspiracy site conjecturing that the virus was a dry run for terrorists, before distributing a much more lethal disease. Since then, the conspiracy nuts have really gone off the deep end.

What do I now know for certain? H1N1a is a "new" virus which contains elements of swine, avian, and human influenza. There is sustained human-to-human transmission occuring.

What do I now have reasonable assurance of? The swine flu seems to have a short incubation period- people get symptoms within 1-3 days of infection. It also seems to have the lifespan of the standard human flu virus- about a week. And most people outside of Mexico who have been infected have had relatively mild symptoms and recovered.

What do I now suspect? It's currently being passed mostly between children, as colds and flus tend to do. Medical care and forewarning have helped in the US to avoid fatalities and mass transmission of the virus.

What do I now speculate? We can discount Mexico as an anomoly; the probable vector of the swine flu was unsafe sanitation practices by a pig farm, dumping waste into a river. Possibly the flu combined with cholera or another disease to become more lethal, but we don't really know (and may never know.)

What do I think the risks are? The virus could mutate or combined with another, more lethal virus strain and become a "superflu". This was the fear with avian flu; it's a lot more dangerous than other strains- but only spreads from bird-to-human contact. The worry was that someone with a human-to-human transmitted flu strain would contract bird flu as well, and the viruses would combine in the host. At that point, random things could happen- the new virus could lose its lethality, or its infectiousness, or both, becoming nonviable- or the worst case scenario, it would gain both.

What do I now predict? We're in for a longer than normal flu season, with a strain that wasn't in the vaccine. It happened a few years ago, so it's nothing new.

What do I do? Keep washing my hands and try not to get sneezed on. I've got a baby at home- any type of flu would be dangerous for him. And I go on with my life.

-Erik

Your number of 7 deaths only represents cases that were "tested" and positive. You are leaving out the other 170 people they have not tested but suspect died from swine flu. It is just not possible to test each and every person, nor is it an appropriate use of resources.

If you get sick, and test positive for swine flu ... is it really necessary to then test all your family members that have gotten sick since you did?? I mean wouldn't common sense tell you that if you have swine flu, and your wife gets sick ... she would most likely have swine flu too??



And the vast overall majority of those 16,000 people that die from the flu ... they are already sick and elderly .... not otherwise healthy children! What determines the severity of a flu season:

* The level of reported activity within each state;
* The proportion of influenza laboratory tests that are positive;
* The proportion of visits to physicians for influenza-like illness;
* The proportion of all deaths that are caused by pneumonia and flu;
* The number of influenza-associated deaths among children; and
* The influenza-associated hospitalization rate among children

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/season.htm



-JoeJoe

It should also be noted that even if all the suspected cases in Mexico really are swine flu, the mortality rate appears to be around 1%; this is still pretty high for a large population, but nowhere near the mortality rate seen in the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic.

Again, the worry is that we're still uncertain about a lot of factors. Hopefully this will blow over soon, and we'll learn a lesson or two, and become more effective at predicting and preventing pandemics.


Posted: Apr 30, 2009 1:25pm
------------------------------
Nevermind- math error. It's been a while. The actual mortality rate in Mexico would be around 0.05%
-Edit- or not. 5% mortality rate. That's high. But we don't know conditions in Mexico.

I doubt this is making much of a dent in newspaper sales. People get their info for free on the web and from tv these days. Nor do governments gain anything out of this. There are more than enough other crises in existence right now for them to exploit.

FOLLOW THE MONEY would more reasonably point to big pharma being responsible for the hysteria. They are the ones with the most money to be made from this, if it leads to mass vaccinations etc.

Additional groups obviously gaining from this hysteria are the anti-Obama and the tea party folks. Another reason for them to attack the government. I'm waiting for the "tea is the best remedy for swine flu" t-shirts, or something like that, to hit the market.

And is it true Cheney has cornered the market in medical face masks?

They are all sold out here - I have to use a Freddy Krueger mask with a Kleenex over the hole for the mouth.

Luckily we will all be much safer now Eygpt has killed every pig in the country.

Though perhaps they should also have banned sombreros.

Destiny

Wait...where are those killer bee's now? They gotta be in the Yukon by now, wearing the skins of lesser bees to keep warm.

With global warming going on, they do not need those skins.

NUMS

Oops. Hmm. That could have some very tasty repercussions- bacon for $0.10 a pound!

1976

Sounds like the mask manufacturers are also big winners. Millions of units sold ...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/polit......49.story

I imagine newspapers are making chump change off of this, compared to big pharma and the companies listed in the story above (3M and Kimberly-Clark Corp.).