OT: I would avoid Mexico for the time being right now....

[theDevil]

...is the attention the media gets from publishing omnious reports the key factor in the vague information about the possibl e lethality or are there few facts known as of now? Or is it that maybe it isnt that dangerous -then why arnt they saying that ?

they are saying that it is not that bad, according to different people in the medical profesion: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8022102.stm

i think also the news organisations knows this, but have a rather "if people turns the tube on to watch more scary pandemic telly, why not go with the flow" mentality going.

also, it is not disinformation, the way the media is spinning this, as there will be no definitely numbers, or cause for real alarm before a couple of weeks have past, in the meanwhile they can go at it from any angle they want to.

The sad fact is that if a news broadcaster ad said something like "it is going to be okay, the medical society says" then the audience would switch over to kbcs-tv`s latest police chase from the chopper point of view.

[pmulcahy11b]

Honestly, at this stage of the game, the biggest problem is panic. Already here in San Antonio, the emergency rooms are getting clogged with everyone who has a sniffle.

[Mohoender]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

Honestly, at this stage of the game, the biggest problem is panic. Already here in San Antonio, the emergency rooms are getting clogged with everyone who has a sniffle.

It slowly starts around here as well. Again the media have a fair hand into this. At last I became curious and went to the OMS website, it was interesting.

There is no pandemic so far. However, they estimates that the risk is increasing (that's why they went from stage 3 to stage 4). Funny, it works exactly as Defcon in the movie "Wargame".

In France, since yesterday the information has become contradictory at best: swine flu, other flu, mexican flu, mistery flu... The OMS clearly identify it as H1N1. Hopefully, we had a fair report this morning (at 10.00 am when no one is watching).

It killed no one outside of Mexico so far but it's spreading fairly fast. It was unusual as it hit young healthy people. However, that is not exceptional at all. That happened in US in 1976, I think, at Fort Dix where it killed a soldier. I'm too young too remember but I found amusing how history as a tendency to repeat itself.

It seems that only oseltamivir is having an action on it. Of course our media are not telling this.

Just go and have a look for yourself: http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/en/index.html

I'm not especially anti-media but I keep repeating that they are only a starting point. What is great today is that we have a direct access to many informations. As a result we can cross our infos.

[headquarters]

Originally Posted by Mohoender

http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/en/index.html[/url]

I'm not especially anti-media but I keep repeating that they are only a starting point. What is great today is that we have a direct access to many informations. As a result we can cross our infos.

yeah , but sometimes you drown in the rubbish

[Jason Weiser]

Well, this gets worse:
We MAY, I REPEAT MAY have our first deaths in the US

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lano...oner-says.html

[theDevil]

atleast one of the 2 deaths where not swine flue, they are still waiting for the second deceised but the coroner says it is unlikely to be swine flue...

this accoring to: http://cbs2.com/local/riverside.coun....2.996124.html

but there is 2 victims recently arrived from mexico that has been contributed to swineflue: http://cbs5.com/local/swine.flu.bay.2.996454.html meaning that the United states of America as its first confirmed cases of swineflue deaths.

[jester]

Think of it this way,

All the people flocking to the emergency rooms for every little sniffle. BUT, what happens when one person in the often crammed ER has it, and they now expose everyone else in the waiting room to the disease.

You do know that the easiest place to catch something is to spend time in an ER or hospital. Isn't it ironic, a person goes in healthy and contracts something serious like the swine/mexicain flu.

[theDevil]

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/0...flu/index.html

and its title is "Regular flu has kille thousands since january"

[kato13]

Annually Deer/Car crashes have killed a similar number of people in the US as have died in Mexico from this flu. If at some point this flu proves to be more dangerous to Americans than deer, I will develop some concern.

[Mohoender]

I keep repeating myself but go and check the WHO/OMS website. You'll find a number of thing about what is hapening today.

- First, there are some cases of swine flu but these are very limited and the level of casualties remain low.

To this day, here are the figures: The United States Government has reported 64 laboratory confirmed human cases, with no deaths. Mexico has reported 26 confirmed human cases of infection including seven deaths.

The following countries have reported laboratory confirmed cases with no deaths - Canada (6), New Zealand (3), the United Kingdom (2), Israel (2) and Spain (2).

- The other figures, including the higher level of contamination (Influenza-like Illness) and the higher level of death (through pneumonia), is coming from an unidentified virus. That can make you worry but I agree with kato's last statement. From my understanding, they are still investigating that other contamination but nothing has come up on that so far.

Nothing to worry about but I'm glad they are taking this seriously. Jester is right the panic is not helping. Yesterday, I made a mistake, however. Around here, nobody is panicking which is not that surprising. After all, a few years ago, people were made to worry about the avian flu, this time they just seem not to care that much (might become a problem, then).
In france the worriness about avian flu was quite big and largely fueled by the government. For exemple, towns and villages were advised to build stocks of bodybags as the government was expecting a very high death rate. Nothing came...

[jester]

Mo you are right about the media sensationalizing things, so now when things happen people take it with a grain of salt, having experienced the sensationalism of the world is ending the world is ending before and in the end, nothing happened. And now, something could happen the media is pumping it upworse than normal as usual and people are ignoring it, because of the past over dramatiziing the event, much like the old story of "The Boy Who Called Wolf" or "The Little Red Hen shouting, The Sky is Falling! The Sky is Falling!"

[JimmyRay73]

One of my local ER's has handled a confirmed case of swine flu, and sent the victim home to recover saying "he'll be fine." A hotline set up specifically to answer questions about swine flu was swamped for a few days. The local media commented at length about how "northeast Ohio was on the map due to the swine flu pandemic" but they rarely referenced what the actual symptoms might be.

Because of this I draw two conclusions:

1) Avoid hospitals unless really necessary. They're full of sick people. (Thank you W.C. Fields).
2) The media cares more about the fact that people are paying attention to them than it does about actually informing their audience what to look for as far as signs of a potentially deadly disease.

[pmulcahy11b]

I think we're missing the point -- the Mexican government, police, military, and legal system are all massively corrupt. Narcoterrorists are largely in charge of the country. People are kidnapped all the time, for too many reasons to count.

I would avoid Mexico right now, swine flu or not!

[Mohoender]

Paul that's an intersting point and I share it. However, most people would not cancel their nice planned vacations for such tiny little problems.

Anyway, until it stirkes next to them, most people think that problems happens only to others.

One of the suspected case in France was a nine years old girl (hopefully not infected) who had come back from Mexico. When she started to have fever (two days after her return) what did her parents? The obvious, of course, they sent her to school.

I'm not of the panicking type, but in that case, I would have called the 15 (french phone number equal to your 911).
- To be sure.
- To avoid emergency rooms.
- To avoid taking the chance of infecting my neighbour's kids.