<p>The Texas University Interscholastic League has suspended all competions until May 11th. As far as I know, only baseball is still going on.</p>
<p>My boyfriend is who is a health care professional in Texas has been home with flu like symptoms for 2 days now. Most of his patients are those in the hispanic community who regularly cross the border. He has managed three phone calls to me in the last 2 days, of which none were longer than one minute in duration. I’m not in panic mode, yet!</p>
<p>It’s so easy to see how these things spread. A person from our Mexico City office was in our offices today…and he’s headed off to London in the morning. If he gets sick, London has it!</p>
<p>Baseball cancelled, too. :(</p>
<p>Do you know if it’s cancelled or just postponed? It seems like once the suspension if lifted, it will be time to start playoffs. Aren’t you glad he’s not a senior?</p>
<p>Technically, postponed:</p>
<p>[UIL:</a> Media - 2008-2009 Press Releases: UIL Schedules Altered Due to Swine Flu](<a href=“http://www.uil.utexas.edu/db/press_release_detail.lasso?-Search=Action&-Table=table&-Database=press_releases&-KeyValue=312]UIL:”>http://www.uil.utexas.edu/db/press_release_detail.lasso?-Search=Action&-Table=table&-Database=press_releases&-KeyValue=312)</p>
<p>It makes no sense to say, oh well, only one person in the US has died from swine flu so we shouldn’t worry. This is just the beginning! Most of the people who are going to get this flu aren’t sick yet.</p>
<p>This is a variety of flu that came from pigs. Humans don’t have natural immunity. So if it proves to be very infectious, we can expect 25% to 50% of Americans to get it. The Spanish Flu of 1918 had a mortality rate of somewhere around 2.5-5%, but let’s say this flu had a mortality rate of .1%. That would mean (editted to put in correct number) 75 thousand dead Americans. And again, normal flu kills babies and old people, but this flu so far is killing healthy young adults. </p>
<p>Tamiflu? Yeah, fine, but with 11 million doses of Tamiflu and 150 million hypothetical sick Americans, there would be something of a shortage. There’d be a shortage of hospital beds, too.</p>
<p>The World Health Organization has raised its alert level from 4 to 5, signaling a global pandemic could be imminent. Level 6 would indicate a full blown pandemic in progress.</p>
<p>Cardinal Fang,</p>
<p>The gubment has 50 million treatments on hand, with 11 million more on the way. The problem won’t be a shortage of Tamiflu, it seems.</p>
<p>Also, your numbers are a bit off. .1% of 150,000,000 is 150,000…</p>
<p>Cardinal Fang, I am not following your math. .1% of US population is 7,500,000 IF US population is the current population is 7.5 trillion people…???</p>
<p>lorelei, even before I saw your message I had fixed the arithmetic error that put my numbers off by two orders of magnitude. My bad.</p>
<p>Did anyone else notice in the latest NYT article that Egypt is ordering all their pigs to be slaughetered? What is this supposed to do?</p>
<p>Slaughtering the pigs seems so idiotic. Were they looking for an excuse to kill pigs?</p>
<p>Egypt has had quite a few cases of avian flu - are they killing all the birds?</p>
<p>Here is a dose of swine flu reality check: the “reported” death rates in Mexico are probably based on the number of people with most severe cases, not all cases, since Mexico does not track mild cases (and not all deaths have been definitively attributed to flu):</p>
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</p>
<p>[Scientists</a> struggle to understand swine flu virus](<a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_med_swine_flu_reality_check]Scientists”>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_med_swine_flu_reality_check)</p>
<p>“Slaughtering the pigs seems so idiotic. Were they looking for an excuse to kill pigs?”</p>
<p>It’s a Moslem country. There shouldn’t be any there anyways.</p>
<p>My H has had flu symptoms since last Friday (after a cross-country business trip and 30+ hours of multiple plane flights). He is in the coughing stage. Is it swine flu? Who knows?</p>
<p>But, it’s not only the college kids with their final exams who may be impacted by this flu outbreak. My biggest worry right now: can I keep S2 healthy for the next week and a half! S2 has SAT subject tests on Saturday and AP tests next week. Aaugh!</p>
<p>I have been wiping everything down, washing towels daily, reminding S2 to wash his hands, segregated H to one bath only, etc., but really, there is only so much you can you do when you share a home and this flu is supposed to be so contagious. Our local grocery is already out of hand sanitizer and they say even their warehouse has none. I grabbed the last two containers of Clorox wipes to restock our bathrooms.</p>
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</p>
<p>They’re raised by the Coptic Christian community.</p>
<p>[BBC</a> NEWS | Middle East | Egypt slaughters pigs to stop flu](<a href=“http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8024946.stm]BBC”>BBC NEWS | Middle East | Egypt slaughters pigs to stop flu)</p>
<p>Question, if you catch a mild case of the swine flu, does it render you immune to the disease from then on?</p>
<p>I wasn’t overly worried about this until tonight. The President talking about it woke up my anxiety genes.</p>
<p>Reminder: the symptoms of FLU (not some other less bad disease) are FACTS: high Fever, muscle Aches, Chills, Tiredness and Sudden onset. The flu comes on quickly- one goes from fine to miserable in hours. With even a mild case of the flu, one feels awful. </p>
<p>But of course, even a cold or some other illness can hurt one’s SAT performance, so I hope Greta’s S2 stays healthy. Best of luck to Greta’s S2 and all the other SAT and AP takers.</p>
<p>Greta: “S2 has SAT subject tests on Saturday and AP tests next week.”
Best wishes S2. Greta, your husband should see a doctor, be cautious, please!!</p>