<p>That was rude. Maybe I’ll rephrase so you can understand my question better. Flu normally kills about 36,000 people a year in the U.S. Why does this one deserve so much more panic?</p>
<p>If you don’t know, feel free to ignore the question and let someone who knows what they are talking about answer.</p>
<p>I am not well educated with regards to medicine, but I believe the panic is over two things:</p>
<p>1) A disease transmitted from animal to human is generally worrisome as this indicates a mutating virus, and a quickly mutating virus is difficult to stop or protect oneself against and is spread (and possibly becomes re-catchable)</p>
<p>2) Normally healthy individuals, usually at low risk of death from the flu and similar illnesses, are susceptible to fatal consequences from this type of virus (a la Spanish flu)</p>
<p>No?</p>
<p>I know…yikes - I have the SAT this saturday…hope I don’t catch it at the school. On a side note, I’m new here, and how do I start a new post? I have a question concerning study guides for the AP psychology exam.</p>
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<p>Yes. It’s called a [Cytokine</a> storm](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytokine_storm]Cytokine”>Cytokine storm - Wikipedia), and is suspected to have been the cause of so many otherwise healthy young people dying in the 1918 pandemic. The ‘regular’ flu generally affects the elderly, the very young, and the immuno-compromised. The fear with this flu is that it might be like the 1918 one.</p>
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In addition to Booklady’s post - because this is not normal. 36,000 people die each year in a vaccinated population.<br>
no one is immune to this influenza. The question is not necessarily how many have died but who and why they will die. </p>
<p>So far the deaths in Mexico can’t be explained by:
Secondary infections, low quality health care, reaction to supportive medicines such as aspirin (implicated in Reye’s syndrome in young people), altitude or air pollution.
These are all typical reasons for mortality from influenza.</p>
<p>To answer MiamiDAP - influenza is a highly contagious disease, diabetes and heart disease are not.
good public health policy includes attempting to protect the public from contagious disease - this is why we vaccinate and worked hard to eliminate smallpox.</p>
<p>Influenza is a virus that mutates and mutate quickly. They look at past history and present conditions - how this virus is acting. Mexico began as a very hot spot with a high mortality rate and high morbidity.
Mathematical models have been built and used in controlling contagion. This includes encircling the hot spots by quarantines and/or vaccinating certain segments of the population.
If you are have a science background (biology and math) - check out “The Great Influenza” by John Barry.</p>
<p>^^very interesting link^^ </p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p>No more Swine Flu. From now on, WHO will call it “H1N1 influenza A”:</p>
<p>[WHO</a> to stop using term ‘swine flu’ to protect pigs](<a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090430/ap_on_he_me/un_who_swine_flu]WHO”>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090430/ap_on_he_me/un_who_swine_flu)</p>
<p>And according to some CDC experts, the 6% lethality of this virus in Mexico (fatalities/cases) was probably greatly overstated, because the denominator included only very severe cases. Apparently, health officials in Mexico do not track mild cases.</p>
<p>OK, let’s start again. Around 36,000 people, mostly babies and old people, die of flu every year in the US. Most people in the US are somewhat resistant to normal flus because having had one kind of human flu confers some resistance to a different kind of human flu. Moreover, many people are additionally resistant to the prevalent flu because they’ve been vaccinated against it.</p>
<p>Scientists fear for this flu because (1) in Mexico, it seems to be killing healthy young adults, who normally survive the flu; (2) nobody will be resistant to it, since it has mutated from a swine disease rather than a human disease; (3) although so far in the US it seems to be no worse than a standard flu, flu strains mutate. </p>
<p>Right now, only a few Americans have swine flu, but everyone who is sick right now is potentially infecting dozens of others, none of whom are resistant. Disease transmission is exponential. In six weeks, we could easily have millions of infections.</p>
<p>The Spanish flu of 1918 initially showed up in the spring late in the flu season, as a mild disease, just like this one. In the fall, it returned, this time deadly.</p>
<p>Cardinal Fang, let’s not start again. Scientists do not fear for this flu; they are diligently working to get the facts about it.</p>
<p>Until the CDC has the confirmation that all Mexican fatalities are due to the H1N1 Infuenza A and gets complete count of ALL cases, we can only speculate about this strain. We also do not know that most Mexican flu deaths were in healthy young adult population. We just do not have the facts, because there was no way of testing for this virus until the viral genome had been sequenced and the CDC got their PCR H1N1 A test, which happened just a couple of days ago. </p>
<p>I agree about the possible return of this strain in the fall; if we do not get a vaccine on hand, it might get bad if the virus lingers.</p>
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<p>Source please? So far I have read on the WHO site than 7 deaths in Mexico have been confirmed to be due to this new flu.</p>
<p>Bunsen Burner - thank for the above :)</p>
<p>[Vitamin</a> D, Flu and the Immune System: Part 2…The Answer!](<a href=“vitaminddoc.com”>vitaminddoc.com)</p>
<p>Ever wonder why TB patients would be out in the sun yearlong in wheelchairs getting daily sun while convalescing at the sanatoriums. </p>
<p>Perhaps why the flu drops in summer months.</p>
<p>That would make sense except where I live in FL, people lay out year round, moreso in the spring and fall because the weather is tolerable in these months. This probably holds true for TX, AZ, NV, and CA.</p>
<p>Forget about CNN, Yahoo News, FOX, CNBC, etc. This is the most reliable source of H1N1 Influenza A (formerly known as swine flu) news and information:</p>
<p>[CDC</a> - Influenza (Flu) | Swine Influenza (Flu)](<a href=“http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/]CDC”>http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/)</p>
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<p>How serious is swine flu infection?
Like seasonal flu, swine flu in humans can vary in severity from mild to severe. Between 2005 until January 2009, 12 human cases of swine flu were detected in the U.S. with no deaths occurring. However, swine flu infection can be serious. In September 1988, a previously healthy 32-year-old pregnant woman in Wisconsin was hospitalized for pneumonia after being infected with swine flu and died 8 days later. A swine flu outbreak in Fort Dix, New Jersey occurred in 1976 that caused more than 200 cases with serious illness in several people and one death.</p>
<p>[CDC</a> - Influenza (Flu) | Swine Flu and You](<a href=“http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/swineflu_you.htm]CDC”>http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/swineflu_you.htm)</p>
<p>Bunsen Burner - Your are right there is a lot of unknowns. What epidemiologists and public health officials must do is balance the “known” against the “unknown”.</p>
<p>We have to act on what is known at any given point in time based on the facts as they are presented. This is a fluid and evolving process.<br>
Fact is there is a Influenza that is highly contagious and apparently virulent that the population is not immune against.<br>
If the bug cools down in the next few days this does not mean the decisions being made by the CDC and WHO are wrong.</p>
<p>I would urge folks to ulitize:
[CDC</a> - Influenza (Flu) | Swine Influenza (Flu)](<a href=“http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu]CDC”>http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu) and [WHO</a> | Influenza A(H1N1)](<a href=“http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/en/index.html]WHO”>http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/en/index.html)</p>
<p>The seven deaths in those in Mexico are lab confirmed. They have more deaths but at this time not the confirmation from the lab. </p>
<p>Yesterday’s bulletin stated:
While today’s bulletin states:
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<p>What is important to know is the TOTAL number of confirmed cases: mild, severe and anything in between. It looks like we’ll never know that number. Not for Mexico, anyway. Of course, the media divides 7 by 97 and goes wild about how lethal this thing is. It is the WRONG way of assessing the virus’s lethality.</p>
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no they actually don’t. they just need to follow the trail and the trend. there have been math models built on tracking contagious diseases.</p>
<p>the media didn’t raise the pandemic alert from a 4 to a 5. The WHO did.
Now - if we can just get Joe Biden to stop talking…</p>
<p>One of Obama’s administrative advisers who traveled with him to Mexico has a probable case, along with 3 of his family members - in Maryland.</p>
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<p>This text does not pertain to the current virus. It pertain to the virus that jumps from pis to humans, not from human to human.</p>
<p>One middle school has been closed down in my area (planoisd, texas), because of a CONFIRMED case of swine flu.</p>