don't panic, but "SWINE FLU COULD SPREAD GLOBALLY"

But I'm not making light of the swine-flu problem. Sounds horrible, and no vaccine = scary.

singling people out isnt my AIM, that's for a LESSer man

xxxp

real talk tho im sure this is a serious problem, forgive me if i'm a little naive/jaded about shit like this

But I'm not making light of the swine-flu problem. Sounds horrible, and no vaccine = scary.

― Daniel, Esq., Saturday, April 25, 2009 7:57 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

no real treatment, either. antivirals help, but they don't work the same way as antibiotics---we can't really 'cure' viral infections the way we can with bacterial ones

basically when you contract a viral pathogen, it's between the pathogen and your immune system

Purely airbourne transmission, from casual contact, is that right?

what the world really needs is a prion pandemic

only then will i truly head for the cellar with 500 tins of luncheon meat and a shotgun

So now we have reports of "mild cases" of the swine flu in NYC and "flu-like symptoms" in a bronx daycare. But the former would only have been tested/reported after such an "outbreak" and the latter may be nothing at all. It also happens to be the beginning of allergy season, which I am hardcore feeling.

It's the reaction of the Mexican gov't that makes it seem so alarming. Closing public events, distributing surgical masks. It sounds like the plot of a bad Steven King novel.

what the world really needs is a prion pandemic

only then will i truly head for the cellar with 500 tins of luncheon meat and a shotgun

― sorry for british (country matters), Saturday, April 25, 2009 8:05 PM (48 minutes ago) Bookmark

quick, everyone, spot the flaw in this plan!

more than one, actually ;)

i have gone down there to shoot the luncheon meat, as i suspect it of harbouring variant cjd

:)

a wild hog just bit me, should I be worried?

I wouldn't start any long books.

i meant for the pig

i remember the big swine flu scare of the 70s. turned out to be a false alarm. the early reports on this version are scary tho.

http://www.capitalcentury.com/1976.html

I'm coughing and my tail has suddenly become very curly.

Daniel, the reaction of the Mexican government in banning large public gatherings is, at this moment, entirely justified by the nature of the problem they are dealing with.

Influenza is highly infectious and is passed by casual contact among people who are asymptomatic. Once it really gets going in a population it is very difficult to deal with. Because this strain is among the most deadly known, it is perfectly reasonable to throw up obstacles to its rapid transmission to crowds of people at once.

Masks are also a good idea, provided they are the correct sort of masks and are worn correctly. The problem is that most untrained people are unlikely to use them correctly until they are scared enough to pay careful attention, so this is not as good an early measure as crowd dispersal. Them viruses are small and easy to inhale.

As usual, if no pandemic appears, many people who were inconvenienced by public health measures designed to prevent the pandemic will claim there was never any danger and the officials overreacted.

Like I said, read The Great Influenza. You'll be plenty impressed at what this stuff can do.

The Swine Flew

http://i41.tinypic.com/9qgsd0.jpg

Does this mean that all those things people said would happen "when pigs fly" are now possible?
(That some bird flew is way more likely, maybe this should be called swine fever)

Ugh, pharmacists at work (like five of them) were joking about why pigs and birds were hanging out at the first place, which I thought was just lol joeks, but then they proceeded to spend like twenty minutes talking about it and showing that they basically knew less about flu epidemics and the mutation of the virus than I do from my reading of a handful of NYT articles over the years.

I usually try to rep for pharmacists (most are doctors too, rooting for the home team, etc) but seriously, guys had no idea what they were talking about. It was really strange.

President Barack Obama's health is fine a little more than a week after he traveled to Mexico, where an outbreak of swine flu has killed at least 68 people and sickened more than 1,000, the White House said Saturday.

"The president's trip to Mexico has not put his health in any danger," said spokesman Robert Gibbs.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/25/AR2009042502068.html

which then leads me to wonder: is this whole 'the young and healthy' were hit especially hard just a statistical misinterpretation?

No. Give statisticians a little more credit than that. Then google "cytokine storm."

glad doctor aimless is here to save us

Daniel, the reaction of the Mexican government in banning large public gatherings is, at this moment, entirely justified by the nature of the problem they are dealing with.

I don't doubt it. Do we in the United States have a (a) better chance of containing the virus, should it begin to further spread here or (b) higher survival rate, among those who contract it? I'm not asking based on any cultural bigotry, but because (a) you said upthread that swine flu could be "espcially bad news for the third-world," and (b) a CNN story this morning says that "U.S. health officials said Friday that some cases of the virus in the United States matched samples of the deadly Mexican virus. All the patients have recovered or are expected to."

AP ran a Q&A about Swine Flu this morning.

No. Give statisticians a little more credit than that. Then google "cytokine storm."

― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Sunday, April 26, 2009 5:25 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

i was thinking more about journalist's misinterpreting stats, but thanks. I suppose I should have thought of the 'cytokine storm', but yeah, that makes total sense.

yalls got sars

^ lock thread

^ quarantine thread

whaat

U.S. public health officials did not know about a growing outbreak of swine flu in Mexico until nearly a week after that country started invoking protective measures, and didn't learn that the deaths were caused by a rare strain of the influenza until after Canadian officials did.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/25/AR2009042501335.html

heck of a job

huh

http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2009/04/swine_flu_a_quick_overview--an.php

http://www.radiohead.com/deadairspace/

Drudge Report is making me feel pretty good right now

NYT: Breaking News 1:48 PM ET:
Swine Flu Prompts U.S. to Declare Public Health Emergency

i have swine flu

RIP max

I made an awesome your mom joke about max's mom having swine flu and giving it to me, but then my hard drive crashed

RIP your hard drive

Hopefully this flu pandemic will be similar to the time I got flu really bad in elementary school, missed school for a week, and beat Dragon Warrior I TWICE.

since i live in san diego i am very interested in this bird flu stuff.

but then again i don't think there've been any cases in tijuana so maybe it won't get here

At church today they started out the service by saying, "We're all disease vectors; remember to wash your hands." The guy was wearing one of those hiking hats w/the neck-covering tent-type flaps.

Good advice, tho: wash your hands.

ZOMG ZS you beat Dragon Warrior?!??? I <3 you.

Isn't the Dragonlord THE most disappointing-looking final baddie of all time?

Did you ever get the diamond shield?

Did I BEAT Dragon Warrior I?

I taught that game who was boss so many times I literally lost count. For a long time that was the only game I had so I would just play it continually, beat it, start again, over and over.

and I DID get the diamond shield! I had the Nintendo Power strategy guide to it so I pretty much knew where everything was. Including that one hidden item in the middle of the swamp.