Swine flu

[cjsmith]

My information about the swine flu situation comes from two sources:

1) the WHO web site and the people who link to it

2) LJ and Facebook people going AAAAAAH NOBODY PANIC! STOP PANICKING! SERIOUSLY, CUT IT OUT RIGHT NOW!

Has anybody seen anybody panicking? The news may be full of stories describing panic; note the total lack of traditional news media in my info list above. Has anyone here seen or talked to someone who was off their nut about it?

Comments

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

"Mild" is what I'd been hearing, too, although I don't see how that squares with reports that it can kill. Maybe it can kill only if your body doesn't have reserves to draw on? I'm no medical doctor.

I figured your work might be in high gear. Are you getting crazy shifts or lots of overtime?

[visgoth.livejournal.com]

Well, in the U.S., people have ready access to fever reducers and that sort of thing. The OTC drugs we take for granted are just not available to many people in the world, so fairly simple steps that we would take, they can't, and that can make the difference. Plus, in the US people are more likely to get medical attention, so they know what they should be taking and doing to get better. And despite the "obesity epidemic" we tend to be in better general health than a lot of people in poorer countries. Upshot of it is the benefits of living in a first-world nation makes a potentially deadly disease into an annoyance for most of us. People with compromised or undeveloped immune systems would still be at a high risk, but again, medical intervention could save many of them if they were to contract it.

At work we're already 24/7 so we haven't had to expand hours. For the most part our regular operations involve a lot of "make work" since we're there in case something important happens. So during a situation like this, we drop that stuff and focus on what is going on. Turnover is taking longer, so since I'm a shift lead I've ended up staying a half hour or so late, but that's no big deal.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Ah, fatal for people with fewer medical resources? That is a picture that makes sense to me. Other less-"scary" flus can and do kill, too.

I'm glad you're not having to stay too late at work.

[gekko.livejournal.com]

The bigger fear seems to be that it is mild now, but won't be mild when it comes back this fall (as in the 1918 Spanish flu that keeps being thrown at us by the media). However, a) scientists don't think this strain has that kind of potential (but the media is quick to point out that it could! and they don't know! and panic anyways!) and b) that if it does turn into an even nastier version this fall, those that caught it this spring will be thanking their lucky stars they did, as this should mean they will have an immunity to it.

[joedecker.livejournal.com]

"Mild" is what I'd been hearing, too, although I don't see how that squares with reports that it can kill. Maybe it can kill only if your body doesn't have reserves to draw on? I'm no medical doctor.

The generic "mild" flew kills many thousands per year in the US, so even "mild" has some leathality. I think the concern that it's not mild comes from two imperfect pieces of evidence.

1. A number of deaths in Mexico.... but without, I've been given to gather, any sense of out of how many infected.

2. Fears derived from the fact that it's an H1N1 strain. Nobody short of about 90 years has any H1N1 immunity of any sort. When that came around the second year in the 1918 pandemic (the first season it hit was a lot milder, just didn't get spread as much, I suppose) it had a few percent mortality rate, which I think meant 500K-700K US deaths, something like that. It was also notable in that, unlike most flus that have a big spike in mortality for the very young and very old, the last incarnation of H1N1 to hit the planet also had a "middle" spike centered in the 20s or 30s. (Wikipedia has a graph) Nobody knows, but the theory is that the 1918 flu triggered some sort of immune something or other called a cytokene storm, but ... dude, nobody knew was a virus was in 1918.

Today, we have a lot more stuff to treat people with, and I'm guessing that even if this did work out to be "as bad as 1918" something like 70M doses of the appropriate antivirals would make a difference. And if this goes slow enough to push into next flu season (we're close to summer), we might have a vaccine by the Southern Hemisphere's flu season, or at least ours the end of the year.

Given all that, probably worth taking seriously, at least for a government. Right now, I don't see any reason for me to avoid the airport (I'm at Denver International right now).