Swine Flu - Got the sniffles?

With over 140 deaths attributed to the pandemic of Swine Flu and reported cases diagnosed in North America, Canada, Spain, Scotland, and suspected in France and the East Midlands of England are we due another fear-fest or a global killer?

The world health authority citing this strain of Influenza A as pandemic and stating governments are powerless (or moneyless) to enact preventative measure to stem the spread of this strain, doctors are urging the public to avoid surgeries if they believe they may be exposed. Confirmed cases in England have been placed into doctor ordered house quarantine, with an estimated spread rate of 1-9, is this as virilent as the media is telling us it is.

Hundreds have already died from this particular strain, but are we loosing sight of the fact that a quarter of a million people die from plain old influenza every year. Are we just looking for the next reason to be scared as a species are we always hunting a new thing to fear with a string of war, fuel shortages, food shortages, animal diseases (CJD, Foot and Mouth etc) and "Killer Flu" (H5N1 etc)?




Hiding from the world?
Cover up by various governments?

Discuss!

 

The hysteria reminds me of Bird Flu/SARS/etc...

 

This pandemic nonsense needs to be shut down, immediately. That term is reserved for diseases that have the potential to kill half the planet (like... the black plague), not do far less damage that the common cold. I'm appalled at the WHO for granting it that status. The only real pandemic is stupidity, which continues to thrive.

 

Pandemic!

i spotted a bio-hazard symbol on the local news along with the dramic music and decided to switch off right there and then.

Its just the blooming flu at the moment, nothing to see here, move along.
now when it starts dropping people like flies and we have government cart pushers goign round shouting "bring out your dead" THEN ill get worried.

But i have a basement so i think i could seal myself down there if it comes to it.

EDIT:: isnt the HXN1 strane of flu the useless not very important ones?

 

Whatever happened to bird flu? It was all the rage a while ago...

 

i'm about as worried about this as i am about sars, bird flu, west nile virus, mad cow disease, and all the other horrible pandemics that have devastated this planet in the last decade. do we have a yawning smiley?

 

im loving all the american vegitareans screaming that its our fault for eating bacon.

****ing nut jobs

 

Who, the Americans? the Vegetarians? or those that can't spell vegetarians?

 

Pharmaceutical companies wet dream. They'll keep pushing it behind the scenes for as long as they can keep pushing up their share price, that's isn't conspiracy theory either. Why do you think people like Glaxo can't help but tell people how much stuff they've got stockpiled against it, at every opportunity.

 

all 3 judging from the bbc

i typo'd spelling Vegetarian, was busy nomming a bacon and sausage flu sandwich

 

Surely if we DIDN'T eat bacon this would spread faster what with all the extra pig's around?

Damn vegetarians are killing us all!

 

And how many people die of Malaria and TB a year?

 

/snaps fingers,
....theres another


well stop snapping your @#!$ing fingers then

 

i don't know what all the fuss is about, i still have sars and i'm fine lol

i just feel like pandemic is the new buzzword the bbc like to use right now, it'll change for may

 

Pandemic my arse.

Come back when it's Ebola.

Until then, sod off.

I've yet to catch bird flu, sars, TB (Which I haven't had the jab for), malaria, mad cow disease, or any of the other "OH****WE'REGONNADIE" 'diseases' that're been trotted out in front of us. Apparently, 6+billion people have also managed not to catch any of the above and die on a regular basis.

Now, where's my bacon sandwich..

 

Just to give you an idea of how deadly a flu pandemic is, the flu pandemic during WW1 killed more people that WW1 did.

Now, a pandemic doesn't mean that everyone is going to die, lets get our disease spread terminology straight here.

Endemic - Business as usual for that disease, expected deaths and infections
Epidemic - Higher than expected infections, if you get 10 rabies infections that's an epidemic because it's so rare
Pandemic - An epidemic that spreads to a large area such as spanning a continent, several continents or the world

No disease has the capability to wipe out the human race, not any we know of, even Ebola, the worst epidemic of that had a 90% fatality rate, not 100% (usually it's around 80%).

This swine flu pandemic is a pandemic because it has spread across the globe and swine flu is only supposed to occasionally infect people who work closely with pigs. It's also unheard of passing from human to human before.

Now to the problem with the swine flu, and we could be in some serious trouble, I'm not talking the end of the world here, but there is the possibility that a large number of people will die. We have no vaccines. Seen the NHS adverts on TV? What they do is they figure out which flu viruses are going to be the ones that spread around and make a vaccine. This is then given to people who are at risk of the flu causing them serious problems. This means all the elderly, diabetics (which includes my girlfriend), etc. are all at risk of serious complications because they aren't protected from this flu. Seeing as we are an ageing population in the UK, a huge chunk of our population is seriously at risk. There is also the problem that to our bodies this is a completely new virus.

A quarter of a million people die worldwide, most deaths are in countries that don't have any form of flu vaccination programs. Now all of the world is at risk and we can expect that quarter of a million number to be significantly higher.

 

Except for the fact that the people dying from this are young health adults, not the elderly which wouldn't be too bad a thing in this country as it could save us a fortune.

 

Oh no it'll be so bad I mean in the last one 1 million people died world wide and that was 40 years ago, with the advancements in medical technology we should have no worries. Plus a million people die a year with Malaria would think that would be much more concerning.

tbh I dont really care, if its gonna happen, its gonna happen, nothing you can do to stop it till they make a vacine, just wish sky news would shut up, they make it out like the worlds going to end.

 

/snap, /snap, /snap

...Sure, it may be tragic, but it's got a great rhythm!

 

You'd have thought that, but we've had the treatment of flu down for quite a while

It's still a risk, but it's under control and I don't think it'd been able to pass from human to human yet, which is when an animal flu becomes a problem. The mexican swine flu outbreak can pass from human to human so it's going to spread.