Originally Posted By ecdc Seriously. I really need some help understanding this. I haven't followed this very closely because...well...I'm not crazy. What is the deal with swine flu (no, this isn't a Jerry Seinfeld routine)? Here's what my understanding is: By the latest count, 141 people were sickened with it in the U.S. That's .000047% of the population of the country. There has been one death--an infant from Mexico who was taken to a Texas hospital for treatment, but by then had become too ill to help. According to the World Health Organization, the H1N1 strain of influenza most often causes only mild symptoms and clears up without any treatment within a few days. Is there something in the reporting that I've somehow missed that justifies the level of panic and focus we've seen the last few days? My work installed hand sanitizers all over the place at considerable expense. People are talking about canceling trips to Disneyland. This is a genuine question: did I miss something or has the whole world recently gone insane?
Originally Posted By mele I think people are worrying because young, healthy people are becoming ill from this. I dunno, I'm not freaking out over it. My mom is but she freaks out over everything.
Originally Posted By DAR If this were a coming attraction before a movie it would say "From the creators worldwide panics known as SARS, Avian Bird Flu and Lyme's Disease comes Swine Flu." I've said it before it's when we're not ready, especially in the US, that really nails us.
Originally Posted By alexbook >>This is a genuine question: did I miss something or has the whole world recently gone insane?<< What makes you think it's only recently? My theory: People get nervous when there's any new threat. They don't know how seriously to take it, so some percentage of the population naturally fears the worst.
Originally Posted By DAR Here's something to calm people's irrational fears about this Swine Flu: "As the two friends wandered through the snow on their way home, Piglet grinned to himself, thinking how lucky he was to have a best friend like Pooh. Pooh thought to himself: "If the pig sneezes he's fricking dead."
Originally Posted By ecdc And BTW, now comes word that all this swine flu paranoia is causing actual problems. Here in Utah some schools closed down because some elementary school kids caught it. (As an aside, they canceled the high school senior prom. What kind of sense that makes is beyond me. Poor kids.) When word of the sick kids spread and was picked up by the news, the local children's hospitals immediately started getting flooded by parents with kids who so much as looked like they were going to sneeze. Of course, even if you do have the swine flu, there's really not a whole lot the hospital can do for you other than observe and make sure you get enough fluids. So now the hospital has put out several statements begging people to take a chill pill so they can help people with actual illnesses and injuries that require actual help.
Originally Posted By pecos bill It is not a pandemic or epidemic, it is a panic. Last night while eating out, some guy loudly sneezed, and every person in the room seemed to flinch.
Originally Posted By DAR Twelve schools closed here last week and will remain closed. An additional 10 closed this week. The common thread, all but two or three have high Latino populations in the schools and communities. The school right down the block from me closed.
Originally Posted By Sara Tonin Okay, there are people officially over the edge. I had to have blood drawn for routine tests Saturday morning. While in the lab waiting area a lady coughed and people moved away from her. On Friday I was in Target and was looking for a pump bottle of hand sanitizer and I was told they'd been out of it for a couple days...same thing Saturday at Walmart and the Lysol spray display was decimated. Yes there should be concern, but this is on the verge of panic.
Originally Posted By pecos bill You know, I would wager that in a case like this, a panic can be a good thing. At least people are aware and doing things to prohibit the spread. I like the idea that so many people are using hand sanitizers. Perhaps if we acted like this during the typical flu season we could cut cases in half.
Originally Posted By dshyates Anything to get nasty folks to actually wash their hands. The number of guys I see use the restroom and just walk out without so much as looking at the sink is shocking. By the way, I went to a McDonald's the other day, and they now have this hook like thing on the back of the door of the restroom for you to use your forearm to open it with when leaving.
Originally Posted By DAR <<Anything to get nasty folks to actually wash their hands. The number of guys I see use the restroom and just walk out without so much as looking at the sink is shocking.>> I call that "pulling a Papi" named after the character in Seinfeld.
Originally Posted By SuperDry <<< I call that "pulling a Papi" named after the character in Seinfeld. >>> Ug. That was a classic!
Originally Posted By Inspector 57 <<You know, I would wager that in a case like this, a panic can be a good thing. At least people are aware and doing things to prohibit the spread. I like the idea that so many people are using hand sanitizers. Perhaps if we acted like this during the typical flu season we could cut cases in half.>> It's always good to use everyday, common-sense hygienic measures. Maybe their recently increased use is the silver lining of all the publicity over this not-very-unusual-so-far outbreak. And, in the face of a POSSIBLE (though unlikely) serious pandemic, it may be best to err on the side of caution. While the threat of SARS was HUGELY, HUGELY overblown by the media [at a cost of millions and millions of dollars to various countries, industries, and individuals], it still would have been better if people/governments would have implemented cautions against its spread sooner rather than later. But there's a point at which the whole thing becomes unjustifiable hysteria. For example, Egypt just decreed that thousands of pigs in that country will be killed to prevent the spread of "swine flu." Uhhhhh... the spread of "swine flu" doesn't have anything to do with pigs.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 The thing is, it's going to be hard to say if all the extra hand-washing and closing of schools with infected kids (including here in NY) was at least partly responsible for stemming this outbreak (assuming the worst has passed - a few people are still saying that we won't know till the Fall, as the 1918 pandemic was a spring-outbreak, summer-dormant, fall-explosion thing), or whether it was just overblown to begin with. And the next time something more serious arises, will a "cry wolf" mentality take over, and people will say "big deal. Look what happened with bird flu and swine flu. I'm not keeping my kids out of school again..." - and then it turns out they should have? Public health is a tricky thing.
Originally Posted By SuperDry <<< Public health is a tricky thing. >>> ... especially true with a flu pandemic. Part of the problem is that the severity both in terms of fatalities and human-to-human transmission is not known early on. If the powers that be always waited until all of the facts were known, it would be far more difficult to contain, if possible at all.
Originally Posted By Mr X There is a call on some right winger websites to "impeach Obama" based on the fact that he hasn't contained this "threat" to America from Mexico. They are upset that he didn't close the border, apparently. And there is a subset that insist this is a "man-made" terrorist flu designed to destroy America, aided by White House complacency (some even say Obama authorized it). <--dons tin foil cap
