First death in my state reported, Arizona. Killed a 2 year old :(

I just heard on my noon news about the child that died here. That's interesting Baraka that he was actually from Mexico. Yesterday they announced a woman in my county here in Michigan is a probable case. I am nervous about this and the rapid pace it seems to be spreading with travel.

I am mostly afraid because my husband is supposed to be going to Mexico City for work in a little over a week. He's the only person not laid off that can do the work for the Mexican Co. so he has to go. His Co. did say that they are going to play it by ear and if things look to be getting worse there, they may tell the other Co. they have to postpone the trip. I really hope they do, I worry enough about Hubby when he's traveling.


M-O-O-N spells "swine flu".:)

Update: WHO says there are only 7 deaths and 79 confirmed cases
Only 7 swine flu deaths, not 152, says WHO | smh.com.au

Only 7 total? Including Mexicans?

Seems like some people have their signals crossed.

Or the media decided they needed a non-political story to get some ratings, because this is not adding up.

All of this is sensationalist bullshit.

I'm thinking that this is a good time to stock my freezer with pig.

And yes, I am an opportunistic bastard.

Not exactly; not all of it.

It should be noted that the discrepancy between the WHO numbers and other numbers is one of officiousness. WHO has "officially" confirmed their numbers in labs. This suggests the number of fatalities will likely increase, especially if the "reported" deaths in Mexico haven't been "officially" investigated by WHO.

While I agree we shouldn't sensationalize or panic over this, I also wouldn't underestimate something that has the very real potential to kill tens of thousands in the U.S. alone, just as it had at least twice in the past 50 years.

Yeah, it's the same with AIDS. Not all deaths are subjected to rigourous post-mortem analysis, especially in developing nations, but when someone dies they may simply look at the symptoms that person had prior to death and ascribe the death to a particular (and likely) cause. Without really good lab testing, we can't always say with 100% accuracy what killed the person, we just identify the most likely candidate.

the back tracking begins eh...

only 7 now? i knew the media was having a field day..either that or the politicians want to stop people worrying about it and are downlplaying the situation

WHO raises pandemic alert to second-highest level - CNN.com
The previous report seems to be full of shit. Pandemic level raised to 5.

Also, Ron Paul is still around? I was kind of hoping he'd crawl back into his cave after the election

I'm just curious. How is this different than the normal flu? Why don't we have a level 5 pandemic every year when that comes around? So far this seems like a flu that's hitting out of season and got spread to a lot of places due to bad holiday timing. I mean people are likely to get sick, but the fatality rate of Mexico (whether it's 7 or 150) seems far off compared to what it's doing to anyone else.

Granted, it's off season, which generally is worse in terms of what doctors are prepared to deal with and in terms of the fact that people are out and about more than during "normal" flu season, but this is kind of silly.

I think its different from a normal flu because the age demographics of mortality are different from a normal flu. A normal flu kills mostly young and old, and this swine flu is killing people with usually healthy immune sytstems aged 20-40.

I have no intentions of freaking out. I'm actually more worried about the two unrelated cases of chicken pox I was exposed to in the past three weeks and the kid who developed MRSA in her pox (poor kid!), the ORSA, PCP, and hospital superbugs floating aroudn daily at my job.
I actually walk around singing Blue Monster much of the time...



I'm going the Winchestaaaahhhhh.........

There are approximately 63730 deaths per year in the United States alone from Flu and Pneumonia. This is only interesting because it is a slightly different strain, I think combining Human, Bird and Pig flu. I am thinking of this no differently that I think about regular Influenza or any other ailment. This is just the popular thing to talk about at the the current time because it's something brand new and shiny that the news has latched on to.

The question will be, did the steps taken by the WHO, CDC, and other agencies prevent real wide-spread outbreak? Did modern medicine prevent the large numbers of deaths since it can be treated with Tamiflu?

And, maybe individual people even helped stopped the transmission of it.

Then again, I'll wait until next winter to see if this mutates or anything.

Except that virtually all of the cases in the US and the only death follow that normal pattern. The large number of unconfirmed cases in Mexico follows the dangerous "young and healthy" trend, but it's been very hard to tell how reliable those are right now.

Rebel!

That's how I feel about it.

OMG WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!

Everyone PANIC!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

now im really worried...

I'm not worried about it at all. I still think my highest risk of death is getting into my car, or onto my bike, each day. The media enjoy stirring up the pot and selling panic, but in reality I think my life is put at risk in other, more realistic ways, many times over before some obscure malady from a foreign country ever will.

There will always be some sickness or malady to worry about if you look hard enough. In this case, I consider it to be widespread hypochondria. If it develops to something more than that, so be it, but I still think the odds of my personally being affected are minimal to non-existent. Generally, people don't take much action to prevent themselves from other, more realistic maladies, but suddenly there is this expectation that people should dramatically alter their lives solely because a more trendy and contemporary virus has come along. It all seems very silly and irrelevant to me.

It's funny, people are either taking it very seriously or not seriously at all. And in a way that's how life works, you can sit and be worried or go out and live and figure the odds are against you dying.

My eyebrows are definitely raised and a little phobia is coming. I find I'm washing my hands more and paying attention to this, especially since I work with homeless and addicts who are not generally known to hang around the high ends of town. My wife works in a bank and we all know how dirty and germ infested money can be.

I don't see this as SARS or the Bird Flu... call me paranoid but there's something about this one that has my attention, not quite to total paranoia levels but close.

We foster a child in Mexico City, and I'm concerned for his well-being. Gotta trust his host family to act responsibly.

Selfishly, I'm most worried that governments might start restricting travel. I'm scheduled to fly through Amsterdam on the way to Liverpool in a few weeks. If European leaders lose their cool over this, you'll see how I earned my name!

Just saw on the news, there has been 2 confirmed cases of person to person airborne contact. So now, it's a whole new ballgame!

WHO raises pandemic level to Phase 5: pandemic imminent
 

WHO Raises Swine Flu Alert - Forbes.com

The number of cases in the Toronto area has increased by another 3. These are all cases of young people (20s) coming in from Cancun, however, and their cases are relatively mild, so it seems limited in scope.

Remember the bird flu?

Remember the West Nile Virus.

Remember all the fucking political and media hype associated with them?

I'm completely fed up with the total media circus surrounding this illness. When 13,000 people die from the seasonal variety of the flu and it get's mentioned once or twice for about 30 seconds on the evening news and then we are exposed to this media BS there's a screw loose somewhere.

Okay, guys, I work at the Department of Health and Human Services.

I was just on a conference call with a couple people who are dealing with this firsthand - clinical testing of individuals suspected to have H1N1, and those distributing the pharmaceuticals to treat it.

Their worry is not that everything is going to go batshit crazy right now. Their concern, and the concern of most public health agencies, is that we are nearing the end of the flu season right now. In all likelihood, if it is not contained and destroyed now, we will see a LOT of swine flu in the fall when flu season rears its sneezy, nasty, fevery head again. And then it will be more dangerous.

Understand?

Capisce.

Masks sell out across Australia over swine flu fears | Swine flu | News.com.au

i knew i should have bought those shares in the mask manufacturing company

I know, i figure stock in Johnson & Johnson (makers of Purell, hand sanitizer) must be going through the roof!

I just saw on the evening news that the possible case of the woman here in my county was confirmed. They say she is 34 yrs. old and is doing fine. I am assuming that all of the cases that have popped up across the globe are all from people that have travelled from Mexico or had contact with someone who had.

As I said in my other post, I am mostly concerned because Hubs is supposed to be going to Mexico City in about a week. I'll just keep watching and waiting to see what come's from this.

I haven't needed to break out my biosuit yet, but I am trying to figure out how many people woud have to die before I wasn't considered crazy for wearing it.

http://www.saferamerica.com/images/products/368.jpg

Since Tamifu cures it, I'm not quite as paranoid as if it were an Ebola or some other virus that had no cure.


Edit: Maybe this is patient zero. I wonder how freaked out the parents would be if this happened today.
http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q...etswineflu.jpg

Tamiflu only works if it is administered in the first 48 hours. It's not a cure it only shortens the duration and lessens the severity.

Even still, I am not at all worried about this. It would take a lot to get me to.

I am concerned about where this is going, but more concerned about the implications to the economies of the world, and about the panic induced stupidity this could cause than the sickness itself......

Taken from Quest Diagnostics, as it appears after I log in at work:



---------- Post added at 11:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:04 PM ----------

I don't think we're supposed to have pics of anyone under 18+ on here

thank you, pony! :D

Yes, I mean, that's all very reasonable. That, however, is not what any of the "buzz" has been about, nor what any of the WHO's releases have been about. Being worried that NEXT YEAR's flu season will be more severe and more dangerous because we have a new variety of flu out there that we may be less prepared to deal with is worlds away from the "IMMEDIATE GLOBAL EPIDEMIC FEAR FOR YOUR LIVES" stuff that has been so widespread since this first hit.

I'm glad there are people who are actually dealing with this rationally and looking at the big picture, but I wish the message was a little more clear so people can behave rationally about it all.

Don't burn anyone... yet.

Tully's fine. He's been diving with his daughter in Cancun. Which is basically a ghost town. Haven't seen or heard of anyone here even getting a head cold. But the people at this resort turned on CNN and left en mass earlier this week.

I did notice at dinner last night the other dinners and wait staff were wearing masks. I though about getting a mask out of my bag in my truck but then how do you eat dinner? If you do what's the point of the mask.

I'm driving home this afternoon. The on-line rate at my house is much cheaper then here at the resort.

Write more when I get home.

Tully.

Home, just read through the whole thread. Pony makes sense IMO. They're doing a lot here to contain things. Check at the state boarder to see if you have any signs. So far not one case in the state of Yucatan. Couple suspected cases in Cancun and the state of Q. Roo. Cancun is a ghost town. Bet you could get a great last minute deal on a room this week. Two days ago they gave me 6 dives for the price of 4. Including a night and wreck dive.

If I didn't have stuff already planned I'd head back for more diving next week. Maybe I'll take a day or two to go check out some of the tourist infested cenotes.