US DECLARES A SWINE FLU EMERGENCY

"Pandemic" refers to the extent of the spread of a disease, not the mortality rate.

The epidemic that truly concernes me remains...murder. I read somewhere that murder kills 100% of people it strikes.

You are dead wrong about the story not having legs. If it starts going away, we will see
"WORLD SAVED FROM DEADLY FLU EPIDEMIC" and there will be several days worth of scrolling on how that actually happened. Im gonna remain at Farmerman STage 5

Death gets more.

Oh, so you just open your mouth and speak without thinking usually?? Hows that work for you?

OH NO, THE WORLD HAS BEEN SAVED FROM THE DEADLY FLU BY EVOLUTION. IN ITS MIGRATION FROM MEXICO TO THE REST OF THE WORLD< H1N1 HAS EVOLVED INTO H1N1.5 , which is a much less virulent form. The bad news is that this evolution into a less virulent form also is responsible for its morphing into a meat eater.




WERE SAVED!!!.

(Unless it comes back in the Fall)

With this being a new virus that the science and medical communities have not seen before, I'd rather they spend a few overly cautious weeks studying and learning from it. It isn't the authorities that are turning it into an overblown event, it is the 24/7 news media and their endless storm of speculation and navel gazing for ratings and to fill air time.

<Snort 'o' laughter>

Why yes, I do!

Usually, it works surprisingly well. I think folks are mostly refreshed by others who are not afraid to speak their minds.

Should I be fired for this, I'll be sure to let you know!

I just got up and washed my hands after reading this thread.

If there was a shred of evidence that the current virus is something to be concerned about, then that would make sense. What we have though is a stain that currently is not very toxic. We know this, we are very sure abiout this. What we are waiting to find out is if it mutates into a very toxic strain before it dies out. This could happen at any time. The 1918 strain was not very deadly for almost a year, till it mutated in a bad way.

What happens when leaders cry wolf when there is no wolf is that if a wolf ever does turn up the crys will largely fall on deaf ears. The behaviour of leaders so far in this flu pandemic has been counter-productive in the extreme. If this thing turns bad later in the year we will be screwed.

Latest news. HINI (kids are calling it Hynee flu), was actually originated in the US. Could the conspiracists be right? or do we just have too many feedlot pigs?

I don't know. You might have too many people who just love declaring emergencies.

Actually it was the media that cried wolf. The CDC and government were pretty balanced about it.

The CDC was the one who for instance was advocating for school districts to agree to close down classes if even one kid turned up sick. The media feed off of government types, and if the Media was ever overly zealous the Government types could have tamped things down by calling the media on their fear mongering. It never happened, and it never happened because once public health officials pointed the media in the direction they wanted the media to go, and the media herd took of in that direction, they could not say that the media is wrong without grave consequences.

If only it was that simple, a few bad eggs at the top who like to play. The truth is much more alarming....the herd lacks common sense and also the ability to judge things. Bad education takes its toll in a thousand different ways.

In truth, being prepared for a virulent flu strain and finding out about its virulence AFTER we learn more about it is the reasonable way to proceed. The CDC was proceeding in the proper manner and our second guessing ( based solely on the fact that the flu isnt so deadly) is merely emotion.

Typical for the news medias mannerisms are the latest filings that are beginning the recriminations that we were acting "irresponsibly and in an alarmist fashion".

This, unfortunately is the way that we have to proceed. Its always better to have something and not need it than to need it and NOT have it.
I will now return to my original cynical thres, already in progress.

agreed fm

"The riot squad are restless, they need somewhere to go".

I basically agree with this... except I think that there is room for some moderation. If some feedback mechanism/reality check were added to the process earlier it would probably avoid the costs of the current panic.

I also find it odd that you are quoting the gun nuts about having something and not needing. This is a weak argument for things that have a high cost-- for example flu scares or brain surgery.

Like farmer, I've been a wiseass here, but I also agree with him about the importance of "shoot-first-ask-questions-later" in this sort of situation. Because of the incubation period of viruses -- the stretch of time between infection and showing symptoms, during which time the infected individual becomes contagious his/herself, the only effective approach is to stop movement and wait for symptoms to appear.

I've had to manage this (on a much smaller scale, of course) with a shelter canine parvovirus situation. (Very contagious, highly fatal, practically untreatable.) On day one of the crisis, everybody was on board with the need to quarantine, test, then wait and monitor. After a few days, people get frustrated and want things to go back to normal. But it does take a while to really find out how many cases there are, how they are distributed, and who might have been exposed. Every week you don't take measures to prevent spread of disease is another week you have to wait to get a handle on the situation.

Of course there's the don't-cry-wolf risk, but there's also the risk of not responding until the situation has gotten away from your ability to stop it. To switch scenarios, I'm sure that people who left Mt. St. Helens before it erupted were happy to have had and responded to an early warning system. The folks in Mammoth Lakes who lost homes and businesses because of a false alarm, not so much. But whatcha gonna do?




The news media, on the other hand, are, as ever, a bunch of opportunist spineless clowns, and should be viewed with suspicion and skepticism.