<p>Novelisto,</p>
<p>Tried something similar. Jerkbird laughed in the face of it all and continued its assault on my sleep. </p>
<p>Only ultra ebola bubonic swine flu SARS will do.</p>
<p>Novelisto - the graphics crack me up too.
6 cases in Texas and the whole state is red. They really should do it by county and not state.
the 24 hr news stations just go on and on. Thankfully Senator Specter defected so they have something else to talk about!</p>
<p>The CDC webste here:
[CDC</a> - Influenza (Flu) | Swine Influenza (Flu)](<a href=“http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/]CDC”>http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/)
tells you just about all you need to know. the # of cases are ACTUAL - not “possible”. The news stations get a hold of “possible” cases and blow it out of proportion.</p>
<p>UCLAri - try a mylar balloon.</p>
<p>JustAMomOf4,</p>
<p>Sadly, I live in a co-op that would not take well to such measures. I will just have to wait for winter to come back and drive the little jerk back into his hidey hole where he belongs.</p>
<p>Also, even though I am in the media, I find this furor quite… silly.</p>
<p>OK, so today, I received my first business meeting cancellation due to this flu. The email said it was due to “swine flu precautions”. It was a bunch of people gathering to talk about wellness.<br>
So, now, networking for us folks trying to get new business or find a job might get REALLY difficult soon. I think I’ll buy some Cisco (WebEx) stock. In-person meetings are in trouble.</p>
<p>UCLAri – Buy a white noise machine…20 bucks and you wouldn’t hear a murder of crows outside your window.</p>
<p>Justamom – I too am very grateful to Senator Specter for dragging the media off the swine flu story. They were getting ridiculous.</p>
<p>JustAMomOf4 - Thank you so much for posting the link to the CDC count of actual numbers of cases.</p>
<p>The first US death was reported today (23 month infant in Houston, Texas). Sad and scary stuff!</p>
<p>pysch_</p>
<p>Sad? Yes. Scary? Not quite yet. It’ll be scary when a 20-something drops like they did during the 1918 epidemic. Sadly, an infant getting killed by a nasty flu is… common.</p>
<p>And actually the child was originally from Mexico, went to Brownsville and then taken to Houston. He may have been too sick to do anything.</p>
<p>Thankfully, I have no CNN :)</p>
<p>I posted on another thread that apparently nobody cares about average of 100 death / day in US from the REGULAR FLU (36,000 / year, every year), and we all got so hyped up about mostly very mild cases in US of a swine flu with one fatality that happened to be originally from Mexico. Very strange reaction, don’t you think so? Apparently, regular flu is much more dangerous, but we are not so concerned, hm? Nobody safe from anything, but we seems to forget to use common sense.</p>
<p>The CDC has enough Tamiflu in stockpile for everyone in the U.S. There is no need to stockpile it. If needed, the CDC will release the medication.</p>
<p>MiamiDAP,</p>
<p>The difference between “regular” flus and this one still has no vaccine and no known natural immunities amongst humans.</p>
<p>miamidap - yes, I agree that this is being hyped by the media - and anxieties are very high - perhaps unnecessarily. But I’m sorry, I don’t see this as being comparable to the regular seasonal flu. Someone from the CDC said they have never seen this virus before because it comes from animal. That makes creating a vaccine particularly challenging. And the death pattern (young healthy folks) in Mexico is also a concern.
Everyone should be taking precautions, as usual, but I believe it’s too early to just brush this off as just another run-of-the-mill flu outbreak. Time will tell. (I must admit I can’t watch the news for more than 5 minutes…all those breathless reporters and talking heads…yuk).</p>
<p>Nova10,
For 15% of americans, not for everyone. You might consider it enough, though. Some people do not need it, it does not safe lives, only shortes duration of desease and should not be taken in mild cases.</p>
<p>UCLAri,
You just love all irrelevent info. The only relevent in this case is number (or %) of fatal cases.</p>
<p>MiamiDAP,</p>
<p>Even a relatively “low” mortality rate can lead to a lot of deaths if a strain is particularly virulent and you are unable to vaccinate against it. A disease with a high mortality rate but high rates of vaccination amongst the population will be relatively less dangerous than a disease with a lower mortality rate and no vaccine available.</p>
<p>This is particularly troublesome with a disease that humans lack the antibodies for at present. While I’m not concerned about cytokine storms as of yet, this disease does present challenges that “regular” flu outbreaks do not, thanks to its new nature. The fact that it’s generally killing 25 ot 50 year olds is also more disturbing. </p>
<p>So no, from an epidemiological persepctive, none of this is irrelevant.</p>
<p>While this flu is of concern, it is important to keep things in perspective. In our state, they are urging folks to prepare as we do for hurricanes–have enough supplies including meds for two weeks, in case there is a quarantine. Tamiflu should only be used as ordered by physicians for patients who have been diagnosed and are under doctor’s care. If it is used indiscriminately, the flu will mutate & be even harder to have any resources to combat it and it will deplete the supplies and divert them from where they may be more urgently needed.</p>
<p>The pattern of transmission is important so they have a better understanding of how similar/different this flu is from other flus/conditions. Keeping calm but taking all reasonable precautions is prudent. Minimizing our contact with ill people and good hygeine will go a long way to keeping as healthy as possible.</p>
<p>Will miss the travel bargains as I have already purchased the tickets we need. S may get some of them, since he’s scheduled to do a significant amount of travel this summer. I am also scheduled for 3 trips in the next few weeks, so maybe will enjoy slightly fewer folks in the airports, etc. My friend who just flew back from FL to AZ said they were just packed in the plane as usual, so hasn’t noticed any improvement on that front.</p>
<p>MiamiDAP - would you feel better if the CDC said they expected 50,000 people to die from this strain of influenza?</p>
<p>they really don’t know - yes 36,000 people die and it isn’t news because it is in the range of expectation. This is an anomoly.</p>
<p>News conference on now revealing 6 suspected cases in Maryland - 2 of school age children - one in Baltimore County and one in Anne Arundel County. No one hospitalized and all are doing well now.</p>