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

sounds prudent

i've been making out with every pig i see

Make yr own frat/sorority mixer jokes here

I could almost do my job from home if I was sick, hmm I wonder if they'd let us work from home if there was a severe outbreak.

Combination of swine flu panic + crowded law library final exam panic is just awesome and only going to get awesomer.

dude, try medical school finals and you've got a real zesty recipe

we're getting warnings and shit, but nothing serious as yet. i'm guessing the academic health center will err on the side of caution if and when the time comes, so for the moment i'm not really concerned

has anyone considered getting swine flu now so that you wont get the horribly mutated version later?

― Mulvaney, Wednesday, April 29, 2009 9:19 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

also you realize that the whole reason you can get the flu more than once in your life is because of mutations, right?

gbx I've had the flu like 7 times in my life that means I'm super-immune rite

so apparently this guy gave a talk earlier in the year (which i missed) where he was like 'btw everyone i am virtually 100% certain that there will be an influenza pandemic in my lifetime and that when it happens it will bring this country to its knees'

to wit: we will run out of pretty much everything within days. :o

Article on the talk

http://forum.eastwestcenter.org/mediaconference/2008/01/23/media-asleep-at-the-wheel-on-huge-international-story/#more-36

Under a pandemic, with people sick and not at work around the world, container shipping will shut down, power plants will close for want of fuel, hospitals will run out of medical supplies and even staff, he said. The human cost of all that will be enormous.

“People just don’t understand the implications of a just-in-time economy,” he said.

One example: Japan is the biggest importer of coal and natural gas (for energy) in the world. If a pandemic causes an interruption in shipping, which is likely will, “the lights are going out in Japan within a matter of days of a pandemic, and that will have a ripple effect around the world.”

yeah, that's the stuff. i didn't get a chance to hear him, but there were v v skeptical med students that went in thinking 'oh this will be interesting' and left like making plans to buy canned goods and firearms

They don't have generators and fuel reserves in Japan? Houston shut down for a few weeks last year, and the world kept turning.

This article is acting like the bodies are going to piled so high in mounds that the people that recover won't be able to scale them on their way to work at the shipping yard.

do u know how generators work

just in time logistical planning = no reserves

I've no idea exactly how many days fuel Japan would have in reserve but I'd imagine if shipping was hit any big importer, particularly an energy hungry one, would be worried.

not sure if this is just wishful thinking but some scientists suggesting this is not going to be anything like 1918
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-sci-swine-reality30-2009apr30,0,3606923.story

I pass by this building next to my house every single day - lol

http://www.flupowerflu.com/bigbig-%20Flu_CAGOL.jpg

James Pond will save us all

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51G617B0CDL._SS500_.jpg

okay, ace.

remember: Cake, Hammer, Earth, Apple, Tap

Someone explain to me this on the BBC now...

Mexico: 168 suspected deaths - eight confirmed

...when all week they've been talking about 20 confirmed?

In fact in another BBC article it says 7 confirmed.

they could be counting the kid in Texas, because he was mexican?

another beeb article still states that nobody outside of mexico has died, and still says 7 deaths.

oh, and they wanted to perform more tests for confirmation on the dead, that's why it went down from 20 to 7

So they shoudn't have reported it as 'confirmed' then? Maybe?

i guess, but i have no idea why they back tracked on this.

It just adds to the general feeling that nobody really knows anything. Which leads to articles like the Simon Jenkins one (and the Christopher Booker article in the Mail - of all places - to-day) but also leads to "THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING" type stuff elsewhere. It's all pretty depressing.

UK buys 60m face masks as new cases of swine flu emerge

The health secretary said: "To keep the public informed, a mass public health campaign will begin today, with print, TV and radio adverts. The adverts will warn the public about swine flu and remind people to cover their noses and mouths with tissues [when they sneeze or cough] and then throw the tissue away."

The slogan will be "Catch It, Bin It, Kill It", referring to the advice to use throwaway paper tissues when ill, and to wash hands regularly. An information leaflet will be posted through people's doors next Tuesday.

Good update of the old "Pick It, Lick It, Roll It, Flick It" there.

ah, so now i can go into my shop and happily buy kleenex tissues without feeling like i'm a teenager buying a packet of condoms

This kind of stupidity was inevitable:

"One Islamic militant Web site carried comments Wednesday saying swine flu was God's revenge against 'infidels.'"

I guess Islamic terrorists are immune from swine flu. Everybody sign up.

St Felicitas School in Euclid, Ohio called off classes for Thursday and Friday after a student's mother reported that she has flu-like symptoms. She has not been confirmed to have the swine flu virus, and has not been to the school since developing the symptoms.

Nevertheless, the school says that they are acting out of caution and will sanitize the building. The parochial school's enrollment is just over 400.

So there there has only been one confirmed case of swine flu in Ohio. A 9-year-old Elyria boy is recovering at his Elyria home, and his school also called off classes for the entire week.

ok now that's a little ridiculous

Nah, that's Ohio. We just like to be included in stuff, you know?

lad who was sent home yesterday. turns out he was achey because he'd been playing football the night before.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/04/30/health/0430-nat-1918pandemic.jpg

people need to to stfu about 1918

and 1966, tbf

"Swine flu's coming home again."

WEST HAM DO YOU SEE

YOU'LL NEVER SNEEZE ALONE

HOGGY MOORE, HOGGY CHARLTON, GORDON SHANKS, HOGGY STILES AND ALL THAT

Jon Carrol's take

ah, so now i can go into my shop and happily buy kleenex tissues without feeling like i'm a teenager buying a packet of condoms

This is a thing? :O

In the wake of the mixed messages of "OMG Pandemic" and "Don't Panic, Wash Hands", I'm sure some people feel a little weird in Walgreens asking for Kleenex.

WTF with that article. Should people "panic"? No. Should there be serious concern that doesn't trivialize the threat? Yes.

The outbreak of swine flu should be renamed "Mexican" influenza in deference to Muslim and Jewish sensitivities over pork, said an Israeli health official Monday.

^^ what's weird about this is that there has surely been more of the opposite wacky reaction -- i.e., "see, pigs are filthy, this is why we don't mess with them"

btw I have swine flu and you can totally catch it from posting next to me

*achoo*

Oh, get a grippe!

It's not good for OCD hypochondriacs at all.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090430/ap_on_he_me/un_who_swine_flu

WHO to stop using term 'swine flu' to protect pigs
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By FRANK JORDANS, Associated Press Writer Frank Jordans, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 1 min ago
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GENEVA – The World Health Organization announced Thursday it will would stop using the term "swine flu" to avoid confusion over the danger posed by pigs. The policy shift came a day after Egypt began slaughtering thousands of pigs in a misguided effort to prevent swine flu.

WHO spokesman Dick Thompson said the agriculture industry and the U.N. food agency had expressed concerns that the term "swine flu" was misleading consumers and needlessly causing countries to ban pork products and order the slaughter of pigs.

"Rather than calling this swine flu ... we're going to stick with the technical scientific name H1N1 influenza A," Thompson said...

YEah, this'll stick.

guys i heard a joke today.

they said america would elect it's first black president only when pigs fly. obama entered the white house and now we have SWINE FLU/FLEW.