Swine Flu

[xsphat]

So is this a real pandemic or is this hype slanted to restore citizens' faith in government after all the damage Bush did? We have drug lords in Mexico taking out entire square miles, then this Swine Flu breaks there. And now, it's in Canada too so we're surrounded. It's all just kind of convenient and I really don't trust the government to do any form of the right thing, so I have my reservations.

Anyone else have an opinion?

[wheel83]

swine flu = red eyes, coughing, dizziness, and taking off of school.


i think these kids are high

[bigpook]

So is this a real pandemic or is this hype slanted to restore citizens' faith in government after all the damage Bush did? We have drug lords in Mexico taking out entire square miles, then this Swine Flu breaks there. And now, it's in Canada too so we're surrounded. It's all just kind of convenient and I really don't trust the government to do any form of the right thing, so I have my reservations.

Anyone else have an opinion?

I am totally disgusted with our present government. democrat/republican its all the same. The MSM will gladly sling this slop as it gives them something to "report" on. Its a joke.

There is no real leadership, its all just pretend. All the while our "elected" officials line their pockets with tax payer dollars and take care of their cronies and corporate friends.
Its all good though, we get to pay for it. All of it. People have the gall to talk about fellow citizens and their sense of entitlement and they would be correct. But nothing compares to the sense of entitlement that the federal government has. Its all tax, tax and more tax. We get to feed this insatiable pit of waste with no accountability.

fat salaries, and fat pensions, and a nice fat medical plan and other perks too numerous to mention.  and we get to pay for it.

It makes me laugh when I see these supposedly 'honourable and distinguished gentlepersons' speak. A bunch of back-stabbing, lying sacks of **** that  sell out the citizens of this nation on a daily basis.

bitter and pissed off?    I am.

sorry for the rant, I am just tired of the bull****. It's not even like they try to hide it anymore.


I should probably make the effort to answer your question.
I don't know if its a pandemic, but I suspect we will all know soon enough : ) hack, cough, hack, cough.
I don't trust the media as they will pump it up to no end in order to increase viewership which in turn allows them to sell advertising at a higher rate. So really, MSM is not so much journalism/reporting as it is
sensationalism and yellow journalism. I think stations like FOX fit this bill nicely. And I don't even watch TV : )

If the swine flu truly goes pandemic and bodies start filling the morgue I don't see what the government will do anyways. Quarrantine? Put people into camps, execute them?
I get the sense that society in general is somewhat fragile. There are so many stressors acting upon it at this time that peoples nerves are becoming quite frayed. Between the economy tanking, billions upon billions of dollars going to big business (but lets not call this socialism, more like fascism but what do I know ) two land wars, and one of this countries main industries on the verge of going bye-bye.....yeah baby, lets throw in a pandemic and watch the masses freak out.

I get the sense that whoever it is that truly controls the lever's in our society want to keep the populace in a state of panic and fear. And if this is true, they are doing a fine job of it.
What better way to exert control ? Keep the populace off-center and confused and fearful. Keep them distracted.

I suppose this sounds like crazy talk, all black helicopters and tin foil hats but its the impressions that I get. Sadly, I don't trust anything that I read in the MSM. I am always trying to look at the angles as ultimately I think I am being played for a sucker.

[Viett]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKbypiJosSY

Problem solved.

[ozar]

Anyone else have an opinion?

Sometimes, I really do get the feeling that it's the news media that's running this country, so it's very hard to say what is what, anymore.

[FKSSR]

I'm not at all worried about swine flu.

I am totally disgusted with our present government. democrat/republican its all the same.

fat salaries, and fat pensions, and a nice fat medical plan and other perks too numerous to mention.  and we get to pay for it.

I'm a Democratic Socialist, so I definitely know what you mean by Republicans and Democrats looking the same.

However, I do think Obama is doing some good things. I don't think he is the ultimate answer or anything, but I personally have more faith in him during this economic time than some other candidates.

[o2dazone]

[ozar]

LOL... now that's nasty looking!  :lol:

[wellington1869]

I am totally disgusted with our present government. democrat/republican its all the same.

i dont know, obama's priorities so far seem quite different from bush's.

So is this a real pandemic or is this hype

probably a little of both. On charlie rose last night they had a bunch of doctors who had some sobering facts about the virulence and speed of this flu variant. In 1918 a particularly virulent form of the flu killed 100 million people worldwide. More than were killed in the entire WWI. And that was, they said, with just a 2% 'virulence'. That is, even in the 1918 case, 98% of people who caught the flu survived. So the critical factor is virulence - even tiny death rates  add up to staggering numbers if its the right form. That and the speed of the spread is what has the doctors and the national health institutes up in arms right now.  

I for one am glad they're watching it, even if they are a part of 'goverment'. In a way they're doing what we're paying them to do.

On the other hand, of course the media is milking it for all its worth. Thats what they do, lol.  Thats how they make a buck I guess.   The downside of living in a free world.

I really don't trust the government to do any form of the right thing

well, I share the general anti-government sentiment here, but lets not throw babies out with the bathwater  'Government' does a lot of things right every single day. For me anyway, its more a question of making it work efficiently and within its limited scope, rather than getting rid of it (which would be pretty disastrous I think).  For the moment I'm glad the NIH and CDC (both of which are organs of our govt) are on top of this.

If they werent on top of this, and this turns out to be a particularly virulent strain and people start dying in numbers, all of us here would be the first to say "where was our government?!".

[huha]

I followed the news loosely, but I think at the moment, no one can really make qualified comments about the situation's severity. The virus still seems to be getting analyzed, so until results are in, I wouldn't bother to speculate much.

I, for one, don't feel threatened at all, but until all the facts are in, there's really not much that can be done anyway. It doesn't seem to be much of an issue in Europe yet, although we do have confirmed incidents of our own (last time I read about it, Germany had 2 unconfirmed ones).

-huha

[xsphat]

Go pook! Tell it like it is brother.

And as far as parties go, I'm not in one. I don't vote. The only place voting can make a difference is in local elections, the farm league for the ilk who run the crap now. Only the sneakiest and most bitterly devious jerkoffs make it to the majors. Just like Hollywood (what a country!).

I'm not a patriot by any means, but I am comfortable living here. The trick is 1) Eat half portions of food 2) understand that the citizens of this country have no say or power 3) know we have a puppet government, and 4) if you do that, it's a good place to grow old.

[h0stile]

It doesn't seem to be much of an issue in Europe yet, although we do have confirmed incidents of our own (last time I read about it, Germany had 2 unconfirmed ones).

It's not an issue because they have started verifying people in the airports or at least this is what they are doing in my home country. well, not everybody gets checked but if you're entering the country and you're feeling ill, you can ask the doctors in the airport to check you up and have some tests done. I think prevention is a good thing, though I don't really know how useful this method is as most of the people entering and departing from a country are usually in a hurry.

[FKSSR]

Show Image

Ouch.

[IBI]

In 1918 a particularly virulent form of the flu killed 100 million people worldwide. More than were killed in the entire WWI. And that was, they said, with just a 2% 'virulence'. That is, even in the 1918 case, 98% of people who caught the flu survived. So the critical factor is virulence - even tiny death rates  add up to staggering numbers if its the right form. That and the speed of the spread is what has the doctors and the national health institutes up in arms right now.

Your numbers don't work there, if there were 100 million deaths and 98% of people who caught it survived then there would have had to have been 5 billion people who'd caught it. Given the entire population of the world back then was 2 billion those figures don't make sense.

And bear in mind that after WW1 a lot of people would have been generally weakened by the lack of food and medicine the war had caused.

[wellington1869]

Your numbers don't work there, if there were 100 million deaths and 98% of people who caught it survived then there would have had to have been 5 billion people who'd caught it. Given the entire population of the world back then was 2 billion those figures don't make sense.

And bear in mind that after WW1 a lot of people would have been generally weakened by the lack of food and medicine the war had caused.

lol, good point, tho i'm just rattling off the numbers I remember from the discussion on charlie rose.  Wikipedia says, " It is estimated that anywhere from 20 to 100 million people were killed worldwide,[3] or the approximate equivalent of one third of the population of Europe,[4][5][6] more than double the number killed in World War I.[7]... The pandemic is estimated to have affected up to one billion people: half the world's population at the time"

On the question of virulence, wikipedia says..." The global mortality rate from the 1918/1919 pandemic is not known, but is estimated at 2.5 to 5% of those who were infected died. Note this does not mean that 2.5-5% of the human population died; with 20% or more of the world population suffering from the disease to some extent, a case-fatality ratio this high would mean that about 0.5-1% ( ≈50 million) of the whole population died. [15] Influenza may have killed as many as 25 million in its first 25 weeks. Older estimates say it killed 40–50 million people[3] while current estimates say 50 million to 100 million people worldwide were killed. "

So wikipedia too is posting numbers of "20 to 100 million killed" (a big range) and virulence numbers in the 2% range, so either the total number killed is lower or the virulence is higher, but either way the numbers are still staggering and the virulence rate was probably pretty low. I think thats the point the person was trying to make.

You can see the whole episode here...
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10256

[wellington1869]

Here's a sobering statistic.  10 Million children dying a year from preventable causes.  This is from the Lancet, not exactly a crackpot organization.
- Ripster

I also thought it was interesting that in an 'ordinary' flu season, some 35,000 people die each year from it.

[bigpook]

Speaking of distractions:

check it

[wellington1869]

Speaking of distractions:

check it

thats one way to fight the drug war. in a way maybe mexico never had a choice given the severe and escalating violence of their drug wars. This pulls the rug out from under the drug gangs.

Of course the main market is the US though...

[o2dazone]

Well, what defines what should look legal?

I live in Las Vegas, where public intoxication is not a crime...and although seeing strange people stumbling around on the sidewalk isn't something I see EVERY day, it's often enough that it reminds me what they're doing isn't illegal.

With that said, I personally don't care if people are stoned, frying, rolling or have just snorted, swallowed, insufflated whatever their drug choice is. As long as they aren't making life difficult for someone other than themselves, I could care less, much like alcoholics I guess.

So if they're allowing the possession of drugs, I wonder how long before they sell heavily-taxed recreational drugs over the counter

[bigpook]

thats one way to fight the drug war. in a way maybe mexico never had a choice given the severe and escalating violence of their drug wars. This pulls the rug out from under the drug gangs.

Of course the main market is the US though...

Right, its simple to end the drug war; legalize it, and then tax it. Prohibition proved that making a substance illegal is moot when the populace goes ahead and consumes it anyways.
Making it legal breaks the back of the drug cartels.
It looks like Mexico is making the first step to see this through and I wish them well. But as another poster mentioned, the real market is here in the US.

Being cynical I am thinking the Alchohol lobbyists and Pharmaceutical companys are doing their best to keep that from ever happening.

You would think the abject greed of our elected officials would be all over it though. Think of the revenue it would generate.

[o2dazone]

[itlnstln]

Why is that guy either:
 
-Wearing two pairs of sunglasses and taking one pair off?
 
-Putting on another pair of sunglasses?

[o2dazone]

The sunglasses are kind of a meta-meme to the CSI Miami intro

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceHnUrUAbho

[wellington1869]

Aieeeeeeeeee!

[wellington1869]

how it all began...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxOikAJqjYg&NR=1

[FKSSR]

That movie is awesome.  I do hope they are taking precautions to make sure that little kid doesn't open his eyes and try to bite someone.

[huha]

I live in Las Vegas, where public intoxication is not a crime...and although seeing strange people stumbling around on the sidewalk isn't something I see EVERY day, it's often enough that it reminds me what they're doing isn't illegal.

There are places in the U.S. where being drunk in public is a crime? Seriously?!

-huha

[bhtooefr]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_intoxication#United_States

[cmr]

it's not a pandemic yet, but every major public health organization in the world is taking it very seriously. viruses are of course unaware of the simpletons in either the commercial media or the nauseous whining blogs. it would be a serious mistake to reject this as one might reject news about the fabricated river of guns flowing from the US to mexico or the deceitfully alleged necessity of bailing out banks and automakers.

[bigpook]

I think I will break out Pink Floyds Animals and listen to Pigs...got a hat pin?

[bigpook]

Hmmm.  Looked over the fence and the neighbor, the city's infection disease control guy, has a dog that looks suspicious.

Show Image

- Ripster

My parents had a rat dog just like that. He was an evil little prick too.

[bigpook]

Maybe its not the swine flu we should be worried about:

http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/o/obesity/deaths.htm

[bigpook]

Didn't know he had it in him.

[o2dazone]

Still swine flu, eh? You guys need to get over that. Here, try some hypnosis:

Show Image

Once you snap out of that, you feel much better.

lol





:wacko:   :wacko:   :wacko:

[wellington1869]

Uh,  nice glasses.
.

funny, i didnt even notice the glasses

[wellington1869]

Above what you are looking at are her glasses.  Below what you are looking at is her wedding ring.

- Ripster

lol.

by the way, in mexico, 300 cases and 12 deaths. I think thats the kind of virulence percentage thats got all these doctors so worried.

[bigpook]

Is a 4% fatality rate high?

[wellington1869]

Is a 4% fatality rate high?

I think that was the point of the charlie rose interviewee (mentioned above in this thread).  The 1918 flu that killed "20 million to 100 million" people only had a 2% fatality rate.  So ya, 4% is very, very high, and if it spreads the way normal flu spreads, thats why they're calling it a pandemic, cuz the numbers of fatalities potentially will become staggering.

[itlnstln]

funny, i didnt even notice the glasses

I was blinded by headlights.
 
Strong work, webwit.

[bigpook]

I think that was the point of the charlie rose interviewee (mentioned above in this thread).  The 1918 flu that killed "20 million to 100 million" people only had a 2% fatality rate.  So ya, 4% is very, very high, and if it spreads the way normal flu spreads, thats why they're calling it a pandemic, cuz the numbers of fatalities potentially will become staggering.

Interesting. I haven't really been following as it just seems to be overhyped and the media is all hysterical.  All this bad news on top of bad news has made me indifferent.

On the other hand, maybe a pandemic is a good thing. Its natures way of culling the hurd. Pretty cold blooded to be sure but its not like it hasn't happened before.

[itlnstln]

On the other hand, maybe a pandemic is a good thing. Its natures way of culling the hurd. Pretty cold blooded to be sure but its not like it hasn't happened before.

Brutal. I love the "culling the herd," too. Very subtle.  If you had a smite key, you would probably use it, too.

[itlnstln]

P.S. Webwit, just how many pictures of the "female form" is on your hard drive anyway?

I don't know, and I don't care, but he needs to share more like these.

[o2dazone]

I've got a php proxy setup on my site, hollar if you want a link - I'm not responsible for you gettin fired though lol

[bhtooefr]

I will note that that chainsaw appears to be electric.

But, diesel is the way to go, IMO, and there has been work done on small (sub-100cc) diesel engines.

Got vegetable oil, methanol, and lye? You've got what you need to make biodiesel. Hell, in a pinch, vegetable oil and something to thin it out with (pure isopropyl alcohol, kerosene, even gasoline in a real pinch) will do the trick.

[bhtooefr]

You can carry a hell of a lot more biodiesel than you can batteries, and a chainsaw will do a LOT more damage than a crowbar...

[ch_123]

The 1918 flu that killed "20 million to 100 million" people only had a 2% fatality rate.  

By that math, there were more people who suffered from the Spanish flu than there were people alive on earth in the early 20th Century. (well, if the death toll was higher than about 30-40 million)

[wellington1869]

By that math, there were more people who suffered from the Spanish flu than there were people alive on earth in the early 20th Century. (well, if the death toll was higher than about 30-40 million)

this point has already been made above in this thread, but those are the official estimates it seems. I dont know their methodology for calculating it (and I confess I dont care that much) because the larger point (which I find interesting) was that, at very small fatality rates ("2 to 3 percent"), the 1918 flu killed, lets say, "tens of millions" of people. Thats the larger point that was being made in the charlie rose interview with a team of doctors (there is a link to that interview above in this thread) and that was the point that I myself found interesting (and alarming, and fascinating).

The fatality rates for swine flu are running around 4% right now, and that explains why the medical community (I think rightly) panicked.

As an aside, perhaps that number (20 to 100  million) is over the course of the three or so years that the 1918 'spanish' flu raged (ie, 1917-20), as opposed to indicating those killed in a single year. I'm just speculating, I dont know. Is there anyone at geekhack who specializes in infectious diseases? (I mean studying them, not catching them

[pmyshkin]

Show Image

What kind of parent would just stand there and take a picture of this happening instead of pulling the kid away?

[theo]

Went to the Dr. yesterday - he walked in garbed head to toe, mask, gown, gloves, carrying biohazard bag.  Don't know yet if it's swine flu (I don't care if I offend the pigs) or not, but whatever it is, it's kicking mine and iMav's butts.  It's an amazing experience being quarantined indefinitely when both adults can barely function and the kids are healthy.  Just when I thought my head couldn't handle any more came the tantrum about having to miss softball practice.  "But I'M NOT SICK!!!!"  Wow.  There is a crapload of bribery going on right now.

[eherzog]

Went to the Dr. yesterday.  He walked in garbed head to toe - gown, mask, gloves, carrying biohazard bag.  Won't know until next week if it's swine flu (I don't care about offending the pigs).  Whatever it is, it's kicking mine and iMav's butts.  It's amazing being quarantined indefinitely when both adults can barely function and the kids are all healthy.  Just when I thought I couldn't take any more came the tantrum about missing softball practice, "BUT I'M NOT SICK!!!!"  There's a crapload of bribery and a whole lot of movie watching going on here.

[o2dazone]

Jesus that's terrible. I hope both of you get feeling better!

[watduzhkstand4]

I'm worried about the swine flu even though I'm not in the known areas. I'm only next to the city and anything can happen =/