ok so everyone is all up tight about swine flu. OOO noo it's coming just like any other flu you know the regular flu can kill people too. I think it's just important to well idk wash your hands. You know be smart don't hang out with your sick friends, cover your cough, and don't share drinks. These are things I've known since kindergarden, I think that if everyone actually did them we could stop the spread of any virus. Swine flu or regular flu it's just a virus. Nothing to get all bothered over. You know you can still eat your favorite pork dinner or bacon because you can't get swine flu from eating pork.
According to the World Health Organization, 28,774 people globally have actually had swine flu. 144 deaths.
WHO | Influenza A(H1N1) - update 47I've been reading through
And The Band Played On, which is a journalistic account of the start of the AIDS epidemic and it's definitely changing my perception of the concepts of epidemic and pandemic and how they relate in terms of numbers.
At first, I was not sure if all the attention to the swine flu -- or H1N1 according to pig farmers -- was warranted since it appears that as many as 36,000 people die annually in the US each year from complications related to more common strains of the flu. For instance,
here's a CDC link, though a few years old. Next, like the Swine flu, the regular flu is world wide, but killed so many more. I couldn't figure out what the "panic" was here. My friend works in healthcare, and people are scared of this thing, because I thought the media has made such a big deal out of it. Just like they seemingly did with SARS and the bird flu. He had someone come in the other day "I think I have the Swine Flu. Have you been exposed to anyone with it? Have you been outside your little town? No? You don't have it. You've just got a regular old virus." Likewise, Swine Flu became a pandemic when it became so globally spread.
But considering the fact that 50 to 100 million people died from the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic, it's nothing to ignore. Of course we are much more medically advanced than we were then, but pandemic flu in any form has the power to kill millions of people before it's stopped. Nearly 30,000 reported cases in 74 countries across the globe is not something to be taken lightly, especially when you consider an illness which is so contagious and spreads so quickly in such a short amount of time. (i.e.,
WHO | World now at the start of 2009 influenza pandemicWHO | World now at the start of 2009 influenza pandemic)
What might happen, is, though, people could be so burned out over the "pandemic" talk that they'll tune it out when it really does get here. My supervisor, also a microbiologist, is all freaked out about it. She's saying that the swine flu is just like the Spanish flu in that it will take the virus a few times around the world to actually start being very lethal. The Spanish flu went around the world 3 times before it hit hard (people died within a day of being infected). She thinks the same thing will happen with the swine flu: it will take some time to mutate, and when it does it will be lethal very quickly. [BTW, did anyone hear about the
vaccination, (which FYI ironically reminds me of the book
Rainbow Six and the whole Shiva thing, ha)?]
Of course, if someone is trying to stir up a panic then they could just throw around words like "pandemic" and I would not be the only one who sees "propaganda" written all over this "emergency" --- I had thought the media, the CBC, WHO, perhaps even various governments, were trying to stir up panic. So while I think initially the media did stir a panic (intentionally or otherwise) and yet more likely that it is not the intention of the CDC or the WHO to spark panic in any of us, I'm much more willing to listen to releases made by the CDC and WHO. I think it is necessary to raise awareness of the facts so people know how to do their part in all of this. Better to take steps now to get something under control than step back, think nothing of it, and wind up later with a potentially dangerous situation that is even more difficult to get under control.
Regardless, all the attention to the swine flu is
warranted.
People seem to fall into two camps - those who think it's no big deal because it's no worse than the "regular flu", and those who over-react and wear masks in public areas. Both attitudes are dangerous. This strain seemed to be waning, but then people got bored with it and stopped being careful, and it started to spread again. Do you know why people don't make a big deal out of the annual flu that kills so many people? It's because most of the victims are elderly. I hope that makes people just a little bit queasy.
The only reason that the swine flu is a big concern is that it's descended from the Spanish flu (1918 outbreak that killed tens of millions world wide). That one also started as less serious than a normal flu, almost went away and then came back as a psychopathic mutant killer.
I'm not particularly worried.
Community Forum
Topic: So this whole swine flu thing... (Read 8172 times)
October 26, 2009, 01:47:48 pm
