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Thread: Welcome to the next Pandemic

  1. #51
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    Default Re: Welcome to the next Pandemic

    Quote Originally posted by XJETGIRLX
    Quote Originally posted by BwanaBob
    You people always drag up the seasonal flu as if it is comparable. You all haven't noticed that the majority of deaths from seasonal flu are the very old and the very young, those with compromised/weak immune systems. Viruses such as SARS, Avian Flu, Swine Flu are hitting those who are healthy adults.
    Luckily this thing responds to current anti-virals, but many places in the world don't have ready access to those. WHO has better things to do than cry wolf (things like malaria prevention); so if they think it's serious, it's a safe bet that it is serious,
    The WHO has only confirmed 79 cases and 7 deaths worldwide.

    A pandemic alert level of 5 simply means that humans in at least two countries have been affected.

    The WHO fact sheet on normal influenza states that "Worldwide, these annual epidemics result in about three to five million cases of severe illness, and about 250 000 to 500 000 deaths."

    It's not even close enough to being as threatening as people are making it out to be. And I think seasonal flu is absolutely comparable, and far, far more threatening than swine flu, considering only seven deaths have been confirmed worldwide.
    You're going strictly by numbers - that's why it's not valid. Using your logic I should be more worried about the seasonal flu than Ebola. Guess what?
    I'd most likely survive the flu; not so with Ebola. If Ebola started popping up in places I'd sure as hell be worried. Granted we have the anti-virals to help the swine flu victims, but still this virus is more dangerous than the regular flu.

  2. #52
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    Default Re: Welcome to the next Pandemic

    Today they said on the news that if we are sick we are to stay away from pigs as they can contract flu from us. I wonder what the pigs are saying?
    Boldly going nowhere.

  3. #53
    Elephant
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    Default Re: Welcome to the next Pandemic

    Well, Japan just reported their first case. A high school student coming back from Canada was found during screening at Narita airport and is now locked down in quarantine there (along with all the passengers that were sitting within two meters of her). Poor kid's probably terrified.
    No cage, thank you. I'm a human being.

  4. #54
    Oliphaunt featherlou's avatar
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    Default Re: Welcome to the next Pandemic

    Yeah, Canada always went down easy in Pandemic. Sorry about that.

  5. #55
    Stegodon
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    Default Re: Welcome to the next Pandemic

    Today WHO update stated that there are 331 laboratory-confirmed cases worldwide and 10 deaths. It's racking up numbers quickly.

  6. #56
    aka ivan the not-quite-as-terrible ivan astikov's avatar
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    Default Re: Welcome to the next Pandemic

    Gaia's getting fed up with all these parasites feeding off her back.
    To sleep, perchance to experience amygdalocortical activation and prefrontal deactivation.

  7. #57
    Administrator CatInASuit's avatar
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    Default Re: Welcome to the next Pandemic

    Does anyone have the link to the Pandemic game? I want to see if I can do any better.
    In the land of the blind, the one-arm man is king.

  8. #58
    Stegodon
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    Default Re: Welcome to the next Pandemic

    I wouldn't get too complacent just yet,just read an article in The New Scientist that said in the last outbreak of the human form of the virus it shocked scientists by spontaneously mutating and becoming immune to the anti viral drugs.

    Apparently this is quite routine for viruses and doesn't require any exceptional circumstances to cause this to happen.

    At the moment the anti viral drugs are still working so the effect of the outbreak is comparitively innocuous but this could literally chang in any random instant.
    Thirty minutes of Googling not only doesn't make you an expert in a subject,it doesn't even make you right.Real life experience and education will win out every single time

  9. #59
    Oliphaunt featherlou's avatar
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    Default Re: Welcome to the next Pandemic

    Pandemic 2. Soon you too will be cursing Madagascar!

  10. #60
    XJETGIRLX
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    Default Re: Welcome to the next Pandemic

    Quote Originally posted by BwanaBob
    You're going strictly by numbers - that's why it's not valid. Using your logic I should be more worried about the seasonal flu than Ebola.
    Well, yes, duh. You should.

    You're much more likely to get the seasonal flu than you are Ebola. Worrying about getting Ebola when the chances of getting it are so low is as retarded as the panic over swine flu.

  11. #61
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    Default Re: Welcome to the next Pandemic

    For those who are interested in something other than congratulating themselves over how very, very not panicked they are, there's a significantly less retarded thread about this over at the other place. You might even learn things.

  12. #62
    Stegodon
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    Default Re: Welcome to the next Pandemic

    An interesting article:
    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30471035/

    Obviously there's no way to predict what will happen in the future. But what strikes me in this article are two things mainly: even in Mexico the numbers we've been hearing might be inflated*, and didn't seem to have passed to family members much, and the outbreak in New York was centred around one school, and despite the huge 'environment' you might think NYC would provide for the virus it doesn't seem to have spread very much.

    I have been impressed by the actions taken by health authorities, nationally and internationally, though I can't help but think that Mexico dropped a ball or three. I think that there is a lot of preparation left to do, clearly, but on the whole it looks like a lot of places have a higher level of preparedness than I would have expected.

    *I was speculating a while ago that the difference between the virus in Mexico and elsewhere might mean that some of the 'swine flu' victims either had something else + swine flu or didn't have swine flu at all. I don't know how possible that is, but it would certainly explain the differences.

  13. #63
    Stegodon
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    Default Re: Welcome to the next Pandemic

    I'm a little sceptical that now Mexicos tourist industry is being badly hit all of a sudden some of the deaths previously attributed to swine flu have retrospectively been discovered to be from something else.
    Thirty minutes of Googling not only doesn't make you an expert in a subject,it doesn't even make you right.Real life experience and education will win out every single time

  14. #64
    Stegodon
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    Default Re: Welcome to the next Pandemic

    Mexico's tourist industry was already having a terrible year due to cartel violence. They also have (in Mexico City) a very high rate of respiratory disease, and have a had a larger number than usual of younger people developing pneumonia this year.

    It's clear that there are major differences between the situation in Mexico (although even that seems to be stabilising at the moment) and the situation elsewhere, in countries where people have been travelling to Mexico, where they don't have the same problems, on the whole.

  15. #65
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    Default Re: Welcome to the next Pandemic

    Quote Originally posted by XJETGIRLX
    Quote Originally posted by BwanaBob
    You're going strictly by numbers - that's why it's not valid. Using your logic I should be more worried about the seasonal flu than Ebola.
    Well, yes, duh. You should.

    You're much more likely to get the seasonal flu than you are Ebola. Worrying about getting Ebola when the chances of getting it are so low is as retarded as the panic over swine flu.
    Nice way to take my quote out of context. I thought that was a forum no-no.

    My full post involved worry if Ebola started popping up more than it does; the way swine flu is popping up. Substitute Ebola for swine flu in the current news and you should get my point. Seasonal flu is not a worry for healthy adults - swine flu/SARS/avian flu are.

  16. #66
    Stegodon
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    Default Re: Welcome to the next Pandemic

    Do you think the evidence supports healthy adults being worried about the current variety of H1N1 flu, beyond taking reasonable common-sense precautions? In the US so far we've got about 400 confirmed cases. The only deaths (in the whole world other than Mexico, in fact) are from traditional high risk groups: a two year old and a woman with chronic underlying health conditions (unspecified). Mexico's death toll is much lower than thought and doesn't seem to have been targeting healthy adults as much as initially thought. The majority of the cases in the US seem to be school-age children; only a few hospitalisations have been deemed necessary.

    I think that the way this is being handled is actually really good, and will go a long way in case it comes back worse in the fall, don't get me wrong. Taking aggressive action now on a country-wide and systemic level is clearly the way to go. But I don't think individual healthy adults have any reason to be taking extra precautions (beyond what they should do for seasonal flu, especially since this is being transmitted in the same way).

  17. #67
    Oliphaunt
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    Default Re: Welcome to the next Pandemic

    Quote Originally posted by BwanaBob
    My full post involved worry if Ebola started popping up more than it does; the way swine flu is popping up. Substitute Ebola for swine flu in the current news and you should get my point. Seasonal flu is not a worry for healthy adults - swine flu/SARS/avian flu are.
    Ebola has killed over 900 people. It is, by the numbers, 10 times "worse" than Swine Flu. Some species of Ebola have over a 90% mortality rate for healthy adults, and the incubation period is 2-5 days. There is no treatment for it, no drugs will stop it or alleviate its lifethreatening symptoms. If it's going to kill you, which is more likely than not, you can die less than 72 hours after you are exposed to it.

    By every rational measure, you should be more terrified of Ebola than Swine Flu. That's the point.
    Whatever became of the moment when one first knew about death? There must have been one. A moment. In childhood. When it first occurred to you that you don't go on forever. Must have been shattering. Stamped into one's memory. And yet, I can't remember it.

  18. #68
    Stegodon Jaglavak's avatar
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    Default Re: Welcome to the next Pandemic

    http://healthmap.org/en
    I've been checking this web site at least a couple times a week for several years now. Just a couple of factoids to feed the fire:

    A planet with 6 billion humans on it is much like a huge forest of dry timber, just ripe for a wildfire. Saying that only a few folks are infected now is like saying only a few trees are on fire yet. It's the classic monoculture problem. So a novel bug with sustained human to human transmission is a big concern regardless of the numbers. There's a damn good reason that a flu pandemic is the top priority for nearly every national health service on the planet. Even though swine flu is mild right now have no doubt it could turn into the real deal mighty fast.

    Flu bugs never stop mutating and they are under extreme Darwinian selection. During an outbreak this selects for bugs that infect readily and attack quickly. Unfortunately the same characteristics that produce a faster attack also produce a bigger immune reaction. So as an outbreak spreads it first tends to get much more fatal, and then over time the milder form wins out since it doesn't kill the host. The end game for a virus is an invisible self limiting infection with no symptoms. Your average schnook is infected with hundreds of these fossil viruses without ever knowing it. This is the viral equivalent of retiring to Florida.

    The most likely scenario at this point is for the outbreak to die down over summer. But given the extent of it to date, it is almost a certanty that it will come roaring back and we will have a big flu season in the fall. The extent of the problem at that point will depend on exactly what strain breaks out and how effective this year's flu shot turns out. But do count on it coming back.

    Regardless of how this round turns out, there *will* be a pandemic. Like earthquakes or tornados the only question is when and where.

  19. #69
    Stegodon
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    Default Re: Welcome to the next Pandemic

    Yes. we get that picture I think by now! It probably will come back in the fall -- maybe mutated (either to be more vicious, or less) or maybe the same strain we're seeing now. But what 'pandemic' means is a worldwide outbreak. Like regular flu every year. Maybe more virulent, maybe not even as virulent (like it is right now). AIDS is a pandemic -- a harder disease to catch of course, but it's a real pandemic, right now.

    We will have a vaccine by the fall, hopefully -- in addition to the regular flu shot, not incorporated in it. Things are different than they were during past pandemics, both in good ways and less good ways. It pays to be prepared, and to practice good hygiene and common sense. It doesn't pay to panic though.

  20. #70
    Elephant
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    Default Re: Welcome to the next Pandemic

    A few more cases have been caught at the airports and quarantined, along with everyone who was sitting near them.

    Here's an interesting discussion of the situation and life as a quarantine-ee, along with news links, over at fuckedgaijin.com
    No cage, thank you. I'm a human being.

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