The thing I don't understand about the flu scares is: what am I supposed to do? Like, I'll try to avoid licking my hands after sticking them in urinals I guess, but at what point can I do anything productive in response to the warning "There may be a flu pandemic!". I got my shot, stop yelling.
You're supposed to panic, and then willingly give away your rights, freedoms and more of your tax dollars to the government. This is only after the media has sufficiently contributed to the hysteria in an effort to generate as much revenue as possible.
Marketing is also important. This is the nefarious SWINE FLU. Not to be confused with cute little piggy flu.
Oh you're absolutely going to hate your life when a plausibly contagious outbreak hits a US city. Because while many people - liberals, even - will protest excessive government power on civil rights or taxes, polling shows that most people support whatever recommendations public health officials dole out. Even if it's quarantine, i.e., locking people in their homes at the command of a doctor.
Because even in completely a-liberal places like Singapore or the PRC, experience has demonstrated that even with 24 hour video monitoring and electronic tagging, someone's going to break quarantine and see nothing wrong about doing so, thereby adding a few hundred more people to the quarantine list.
AFAIK there aren't any libertarian approaches to disease control beyond denying that sufficiently deadly and contagious diseases exist... care to suggest any?
If there is some disastrous outbreak that threatens humanity as we know it then measures should be taken, and we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.
This particular issue? It doesn't appear to anywhere near that. Certainly the media finds a story like this fascinating and yes the CDC is taking a close look. But an Ebola outbreak this is not.
So yes when we discuss a hypothetical pandemic disaster I honestly don't have a realistic solution that doesn't shred the constitution or result in the deaths of millions. That said we haven't really seen one that actually fits that description in a civilized country since the advent on modern medicine. What we have seen are the typical pandemic scares every 2-3 years or so, or perhaps an anthrax threat that the media likes to bandy about as potentially devastating. However it never seems to result in the destruction that they claim. Old people do get sick and those of poor constitution may die, but the typical flu can do that too. We've yet to see the black plague return and short of Dr. Evil behind some kind of drugs in the water supply type of scheme I doubt we ever will.
**Fear Mongering Warning**
Its only a matter of time. A statement you have likely heard in the media during one of these pandemic panics that don't turn into anything. The oft-cited example is the flu of 1918, killed 40 million people. Another one in the late 50's killed a few million, including tens of thousands in the US. Of course, regular flu kills thousands of people a year anyway, so whats the big deal?
SARS taught the world a bit of a lesson. Namely that a seemingly new bug could materialize out of thin air and be all over the world in a matter of days. It also showed that many health care systems were not well equipped to deal with this kind of problem. A few thousand people sick floods the hospitals. If doctors and nurses get it on top of that, then the health care system largely shuts down.
A new bug will cause panic, because people don't know how to deal with it. But the oldies are the goldies. Fear surrounding avian influenza was (is) well founded. It has a very high mortality rate in humans; if it were able to spread from human to human in todays world of instant travel, you could get very, very bad problems. Assuming nothing on the scale of the Black Death will occur again is foolishness. Modern medicine is sweet and all, but viruses have been adapting constantly for millions of years. Its only a matter of time before a particularly nasty one shows up; then its only a question of stopping it before it spreads out of control.
Which is why everyone gets all worked up over something like this. And its way too early to say what this will turn out to be.
I have a feeling this particular instance is more likely than not round of Flu Panic '0X! but it does seem pretty inevitable that we're going to get hit and hit hard with something nasty eventually. We keep interconnecting more and more of the remote, god forsaken corners of the earth where conditions are obscene and these things can breed but we aren't doing a comparable amount to curtain spread or improve conditions.
Yeah. Fucking America with their 65000 massive pig farms with $14 billion in annual profit.
Seriously. I have a hard time believeing that these pig flu can't come from America because you have some sense of self righteousness for America.
These flu's are very much grown in the middle of america not "remote, god forsaken corners of the earth"
Usually as I understand it, these viruses only make the leap to person-person transmission when human-animal contact is extremely extensive (as it gives enough of a chance to mutate for human to human transmission). So USian factory-like farms might actually make it less likely for human transission and thus human to human mutation.
I have a feeling this particular instance is more likely than not round of Flu Panic '0X! but it does seem pretty inevitable that we're going to get hit and hit hard with something nasty eventually. We keep interconnecting more and more of the remote, god forsaken corners of the earth where conditions are obscene and these things can breed but we aren't doing a comparable amount to curtain spread or improve conditions.
Yeah. Fucking America with their 65000 massive pig farms with $14 billion in annual profit.
Seriously. I have a hard time believeing that these pig flu can't come from America because you have some sense of self righteousness for America.
These flu's are very much grown in the middle of america not "remote, god forsaken corners of the earth"
Usually as I understand it, these viruses only make the leap to person-person transmission when human-animal contact is extremely extensive (as it gives enough of a chance to mutate for human to human transmission). So USian factory-like farms might actually make it less likely for human transission and thus human to human mutation.
Yeah, bird flu tends to be a problem in places like South East Asia and recently Egypt, where people keep chickens in and around their homes in not-so sanitary conditions.
OMG this is such a horrible time to be in the middle of reading The Stand. I've been watching the news closely and it's freaking me out. Of course, I was also freaking out earlier in the week reading an article on how four vials of Equine Virus had gone missing from a lab, only to be followed by the strange death of all those polo horses in Florida. I know they were supposedly poisoned from a tainted supplement...but it still was freaky.
Nesta on
Don't gain the world and lose your soul, wisdom is better than silver or gold. -Robert Nesta Marley
Seriously guys, zombie plagues are metaphors for global flu pandemics - I heard about this as a minor news article a couple weeks back and then there's this.
Seriously guys, zombie plagues are metaphors for global flu pandemics - I heard about this as a minor news article a couple weeks back and then there's this.
A couple weeks back? Remember where you read that/have a link? The earliest report I know of for this was one of the cases in the US which was diagnosed on the 21st. Mexico announced something was happening on Wednesday, and things really started to move quickly on Friday.
10% lethality? Pfft, this shit's got nothing on Captain Trips.
BTW, this is totally why illegal immigration's gonna be the downfall of us all. Not by taking away American jobs, but by infecting us with crazy pigshit flu.
Illegal immigration and people practicing bestiality with pigs.
10% lethality should worry you. In a pandemic that's a shit load of people. Moreover it means it's exactly not fatal enough that it's easy to spread it around.
10% lethality? Pfft, this shit's got nothing on Captain Trips.
BTW, this is totally why illegal immigration's gonna be the downfall of us all. Not by taking away American jobs, but by infecting us with crazy pigshit flu.
Illegal immigration and people practicing bestiality with pigs.
.............you're either unsuccessfully ironic or really stupid.
Illegal immigration has absolutely nothing on the legal immigration.
This particular issue? It doesn't appear to anywhere near that. Certainly the media finds a story like this fascinating and yes the CDC is taking a close look. But an Ebola outbreak this is not.
The Flu is like 500 times scarier than an Ebola outbreak because Ebola is transmitted by a carrier which it infects but doesn't harm. This is then transferred to a human. This mode of disease dispersal allows for diseases to evolve to be much more deadly since it doesn't require the infected person to stay alive to ensure it gets transfered to the next patient.
The Flu has a low mortality rate which is exactly why it is such a bigger threat that Ebola. Ebola kills or incapacitates everyone in a small range and does not allow them to spread it further than their own small town/village. For the Flu people are still very much able to walk around and give the disease to every other person in the country before they really notice the adverse effects.
Bingo - for Ebola to be dangerous you have to initially disperse it over a population, and even then - you just shut down the services and let it burn itself out since it can't transfer easily.
The flu goes both airborne and has a long gestation time. Ebola is terrifying because it's almost guaranteed you'll die. Bear in mind though, a 1 in 10 (10% lethality) is going to be a shitload of people if half a city gets it.
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DrakeEdgelord TrashBelow the ecliptic plane.Registered Userregular
Bingo - for Ebola to be dangerous you have to initially disperse it over a population, and even then - you just shut down the services and let it burn itself out since it can't transfer easily.
The flu goes both airborne and has a long gestation time. Ebola is terrifying because it's almost guaranteed you'll die. Bear in mind though, a 1 in 10 (10% lethality) is going to be a shitload of people if half a city gets it.
Yeah, for a large metro area and surrounding suburbs you'd be seeing deaths in the hundreds of thousands. The logistics on dealing with the dead would be staggering and have further serious health implications. Possibly plague?
I need a drink, maybe by raising my blood alcohol levels I'll make my body inhospitable to these little buggy bastards...
Bingo - for Ebola to be dangerous you have to initially disperse it over a population, and even then - you just shut down the services and let it burn itself out since it can't transfer easily.
The flu goes both airborne and has a long gestation time. Ebola is terrifying because it's almost guaranteed you'll die. Bear in mind though, a 1 in 10 (10% lethality) is going to be a shitload of people if half a city gets it.
Yeah, for a large metro area and surrounding suburbs you'd be seeing deaths in the hundreds of thousands. The logistics on dealing with the dead would be staggering and have further serious health implications. Possibly plague?
I need a drink, maybe by raising my blood alcohol levels I'll make my body inhospitable to these little buggy bastards...
This is where those detox diets go wrong. If you're clearing out toxins, then really you need a stronger solvent like ethanol instead of water.
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KageraImitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered Userregular
What is the survival rate for a relatively healthy young person?
Well that's the funny thing. The flu virus kills healthy young people pretty efficiently.
The young perish and the old linger
Well actually I dont know. I never really develop flu sever flu symptoms whenever I get the flu, and I get over it in a day or 2.
But the scare thing about the really scary flu viruses is that people who are normally relatively unaffected by the flu virus....well they get their asses kick by the ass kicking flu virus. Mostly because the body works a bit too hard against the virus and weaken itself.
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LegacyStuck Somewhere In CyberspaceThe Grid(Seattle)Registered User, ClubPAregular
So is something like Tamiflu worth a shit with a virus like this?
My mom actually said she heard on the news this morning that American doctors have been using Tamiflu and that it was working well.
Yeah. They've said Tamiflu and Relenza are working so far.
Wonder if getting your flu shot last year helps any...? It's probably out of my system now though. Wonder if I should run down to work and buy some facemasks. Hell, I work in a pharmacy and have sick people around me all day. And people have been complaining about flu-like symptoms they've had for a bit and just can't knock.
Legacy on
Can we get the chemicals in. 'Cause anything's better than this.
Doctors administering Tamiflu and Relenza to everyone when they still claim that the American cases have almost nil lethality but we're observing wildfire spread and there's a great possibility there's nascent swine flu in huge reservoirs is kind of irresponsible.
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SteevLWhat can I do for you?Registered Userregular
edited April 2009
They quarantined the family of one teen after he got this. He's one of the eight that has recovered.
On Friday, Mexico City closed museums and other cultural venues, and advised people not to attend movies or public events. Seven million students, from kindergartners to college students, were kept from classes in Mexico City and the neighboring State of Mexico on Friday, in what news organizations called the first citywide closing of schools since a powerful earthquake in 1985.
Because of the situation, the World Health Organization planned to consider raising the world pandemic flu alert to 4 from 3. Such a high level of alert — meaning that sustained human-to-human transmission of a new virus has been detected — has not been reached in recent years, even with the H5N1 avian flu circulating in Asia and Egypt, and would “really raise the hackles of everyone around the world,” said Dr. Robert G. Webster, a flu virus expert at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis.
Doctors administering Tamiflu and Relenza to everyone when they still claim that the American cases have almost nil lethality but we're observing wildfire spread and there's a great possibility there's nascent swine flu in huge reservoirs is kind of irresponsible.
Could you elucidate this statement? I just got the distinct feeling of something important whooshing over my head.
Doctors administering Tamiflu and Relenza to everyone when they still claim that the American cases have almost nil lethality but we're observing wildfire spread and there's a great possibility there's nascent swine flu in huge reservoirs is kind of irresponsible.
Could you elucidate this statement? I just got the distinct feeling of something important whooshing over my head.
Actually, having looked it up I had it backwards. Embarrassing. :oops:
I was afraid of the statistical eventuality of someone's strain having blindly configured itself against Tamiflu and Relenza and then propagating this resistant strain somehow ... except apparently there's no real way that such a strong resistance could form if there's a huge antibody footprint already. And there might be a huge antibody footprint already, since they say it's both human-to-human and has low virulence (many more carriers than people who actually get sick; carriers still develop antibodies, though). So, I had one of the facts wrong and was worried about something there's no real sense being worried about.
Just waiting for more numbers to come out now. I'm watching this news feed like a very interested hawk. <_<
edit Press conference at 3PM for the high school in New York City with the 75 students who got pulled for testing yesterday. Might be our first cases on the east coast.
Doctors administering Tamiflu and Relenza to everyone when they still claim that the American cases have almost nil lethality but we're observing wildfire spread and there's a great possibility there's nascent swine flu in huge reservoirs is kind of irresponsible.
Could you elucidate this statement? I just got the distinct feeling of something important whooshing over my head.
Actually, having looked it up I had it backwards. Embarrassing. :oops:
I was afraid of the statistical eventuality of someone's strain having blindly configured itself against Tamiflu and Relenza and then propagating this resistant strain somehow ... except apparently there's no real way that such a strong resistance could form if there's a huge antibody footprint already. And there might be a huge antibody footprint already, since they say it's both human-to-human and has low virulence (many more carriers than people who actually get sick; carriers still develop antibodies, though). So, I had one of the facts wrong and was worried about something there's no real sense being worried about.
Just waiting for more numbers to come out now. I'm watching this news feed like a very interested hawk. <_<
edit Press conference at 3PM for the high school in New York City with the 75 students who got pulled for testing yesterday. Might be our first cases on the east coast.
Heh, to be honest, if its in New York City then we're basically screwed. It'll be everywhere by a fortnight.
Posts
**Fear Mongering Warning**
Its only a matter of time. A statement you have likely heard in the media during one of these pandemic panics that don't turn into anything. The oft-cited example is the flu of 1918, killed 40 million people. Another one in the late 50's killed a few million, including tens of thousands in the US. Of course, regular flu kills thousands of people a year anyway, so whats the big deal?
SARS taught the world a bit of a lesson. Namely that a seemingly new bug could materialize out of thin air and be all over the world in a matter of days. It also showed that many health care systems were not well equipped to deal with this kind of problem. A few thousand people sick floods the hospitals. If doctors and nurses get it on top of that, then the health care system largely shuts down.
A new bug will cause panic, because people don't know how to deal with it. But the oldies are the goldies. Fear surrounding avian influenza was (is) well founded. It has a very high mortality rate in humans; if it were able to spread from human to human in todays world of instant travel, you could get very, very bad problems. Assuming nothing on the scale of the Black Death will occur again is foolishness. Modern medicine is sweet and all, but viruses have been adapting constantly for millions of years. Its only a matter of time before a particularly nasty one shows up; then its only a question of stopping it before it spreads out of control.
Which is why everyone gets all worked up over something like this. And its way too early to say what this will turn out to be.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
Yeah, bird flu tends to be a problem in places like South East Asia and recently Egypt, where people keep chickens in and around their homes in not-so sanitary conditions.
Seriously guys, zombie plagues are metaphors for global flu pandemics - I heard about this as a minor news article a couple weeks back and then there's this.
A couple weeks back? Remember where you read that/have a link? The earliest report I know of for this was one of the cases in the US which was diagnosed on the 21st. Mexico announced something was happening on Wednesday, and things really started to move quickly on Friday.
I plan on surviving. I hope real estate falls.
BTW, this is totally why illegal immigration's gonna be the downfall of us all. Not by taking away American jobs, but by infecting us with crazy pigshit flu.
Illegal immigration and people practicing bestiality with pigs.
Illegal immigration has absolutely nothing on the legal immigration.
The Flu is like 500 times scarier than an Ebola outbreak because Ebola is transmitted by a carrier which it infects but doesn't harm. This is then transferred to a human. This mode of disease dispersal allows for diseases to evolve to be much more deadly since it doesn't require the infected person to stay alive to ensure it gets transfered to the next patient.
The Flu has a low mortality rate which is exactly why it is such a bigger threat that Ebola. Ebola kills or incapacitates everyone in a small range and does not allow them to spread it further than their own small town/village. For the Flu people are still very much able to walk around and give the disease to every other person in the country before they really notice the adverse effects.
The flu goes both airborne and has a long gestation time. Ebola is terrifying because it's almost guaranteed you'll die. Bear in mind though, a 1 in 10 (10% lethality) is going to be a shitload of people if half a city gets it.
Yeah, for a large metro area and surrounding suburbs you'd be seeing deaths in the hundreds of thousands. The logistics on dealing with the dead would be staggering and have further serious health implications. Possibly plague?
I need a drink, maybe by raising my blood alcohol levels I'll make my body inhospitable to these little buggy bastards...
I was all WTF when I saw this but boom, apparently it's a pretty awesomely solved problem.
Well fuck, my hopes for worldwide pandemic is dead.
God no I'm not 14 anymore.
"They're Druids! Oh, shit!"
yeah he sounded terrible on the phone
he told me he had the "swine flu" and I was all WTF is that
he said he'd be fine though
he is a doctor so I believe him
My mom actually said she heard on the news this morning that American doctors have been using Tamiflu and that it was working well.
Don't let them back in the house!!!
Well that's the funny thing. The flu virus kills healthy young people pretty efficiently.
Well actually I dont know. I never really develop flu sever flu symptoms whenever I get the flu, and I get over it in a day or 2.
But the scare thing about the really scary flu viruses is that people who are normally relatively unaffected by the flu virus....well they get their asses kick by the ass kicking flu virus. Mostly because the body works a bit too hard against the virus and weaken itself.
Yeah. They've said Tamiflu and Relenza are working so far.
Wonder if getting your flu shot last year helps any...? It's probably out of my system now though. Wonder if I should run down to work and buy some facemasks. Hell, I work in a pharmacy and have sick people around me all day. And people have been complaining about flu-like symptoms they've had for a bit and just can't knock.
My Backloggery
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/world/americas/26mexico.html?ref=world
They've got a number scale and everything!
Could you elucidate this statement? I just got the distinct feeling of something important whooshing over my head.
I was afraid of the statistical eventuality of someone's strain having blindly configured itself against Tamiflu and Relenza and then propagating this resistant strain somehow ... except apparently there's no real way that such a strong resistance could form if there's a huge antibody footprint already. And there might be a huge antibody footprint already, since they say it's both human-to-human and has low virulence (many more carriers than people who actually get sick; carriers still develop antibodies, though). So, I had one of the facts wrong and was worried about something there's no real sense being worried about.
Just waiting for more numbers to come out now. I'm watching this news feed like a very interested hawk. <_<
edit Press conference at 3PM for the high school in New York City with the 75 students who got pulled for testing yesterday. Might be our first cases on the east coast.
Heh, to be honest, if its in New York City then we're basically screwed. It'll be everywhere by a fortnight.