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Psychologist · 05-10-2009, 10:41 AM

Haha, Singapore's lowered the level to yellow. I'm not too afraid of the H1N1 virus. The only reason why the world's panicking is because this particular strain seems to be capable of extreme virulence as well as being able to easily mutate and create novel genetic variants that are harder to control in the future. Every 10-15 years, the flu virus, well, "evolves" and scientists generally can predict how it's going to be and come up with a suitable counter against it, but when faced with a mutant strain that has genetic material from strains that infect different species of animals, it's going to be much harder to predict what kind of strain it will turn out to become.

Therefore it makes sense to try to avoid getting the population infected because it spreads, and it spreads fast.

I also noticed that certain individuals in the scientific community have posited that it would be better to be infected with it (as in, inoculated) because once our bodies recognise the strain, we might be protected against it in the future.

Then again, as with all inoculations, there comes a risk... and basically the medical and scientific community would rather err on the side of caution.

Better to prevent masses from getting it rather than deliberately infecting them so that they will gain immunity because it is not exactly confirmed that the infected WILL gain immunity and/or NOT die from it.

But in any case, it makes good reason for me to skip work... but that's a different story for a different day

*grins*

05-10-2009, 10:41 AM	#140 (permalink)
Psychologist Upright Location: Singapore/Malaysia	Haha, Singapore's lowered the level to yellow. I'm not too afraid of the H1N1 virus. The only reason why the world's panicking is because this particular strain seems to be capable of extreme virulence as well as being able to easily mutate and create novel genetic variants that are harder to control in the future. Every 10-15 years, the flu virus, well, "evolves" and scientists generally can predict how it's going to be and come up with a suitable counter against it, but when faced with a mutant strain that has genetic material from strains that infect different species of animals, it's going to be much harder to predict what kind of strain it will turn out to become. Therefore it makes sense to try to avoid getting the population infected because it spreads, and it spreads fast. I also noticed that certain individuals in the scientific community have posited that it would be better to be infected with it (as in, inoculated) because once our bodies recognise the strain, we might be protected against it in the future. Then again, as with all inoculations, there comes a risk... and basically the medical and scientific community would rather err on the side of caution. Better to prevent masses from getting it rather than deliberately infecting them so that they will gain immunity because it is not exactly confirmed that the infected WILL gain immunity and/or NOT die from it. But in any case, it makes good reason for me to skip work... but that's a different story for a different day grins Last edited by Psychologist; 05-10-2009 at 10:43 AM..