Swine Flu outbreak

Bill Thompson said:
I heard that someone has gone to Canada and has infected pigs on a pig farm with the swine flu. And people are suspecting that this could make the current swine flu evolve into a more deadly one that will come back to humans and be more deadly and harder to get rid of. We can hope. I don't know about you, but I am rooting for the flu to rid the world of the human infestation so that the next big thing can evolve which I hope will be a better life form.

Human beings have not lived up to my expectations. I don't have any hope we will or can.
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What in the blue hell are you talking about ?

What is it with people who want people to die ? Were you born without empathy ? What's the root of your cynicism ?

Perhaps you'd care to look at the flip side of the coin, instead.
 
skeptigirl said:
But you don't know how much giving antivirals to contacts of the infected people decreased the chance for a mutation to occur.
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True. Perhaps we can agree that containment might be a viable strategy when the real-world situation matches the WHO definition for phase 3, but once it meets the definition of phase 4 (whether the WHO actually raises the alert level or not) , "implementation of a rapid pandemic containment operation" is not realistic?

Belz said:
Well, you said if you had your way they'd be closed every time a kid would catch the flu.
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No, I said: "I'd like it just fine if they closed schools during the local peak of the normal flu season". Not the same thing.

Belz said:
Ah, yes, but somebody has the flu pretty much all year round... otherwise the flu wouldn't exist.
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As the level of risk increases, you increase the level of precaution. As the level of risk decreases, you reduce the level of precaution. Does that sound reasonable?
 
Belz... said:
You have a short memory
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You have no idea. If it weren't for sticky notes, I'd have a hard time getting through a day. But since winning this point seems so important to you, I'll concede that I may not have expressed my position equally well in every single one of the posts in which I've now addressed that. Score: Belz 1, Dymanic 0. Happy now? I was being a bit facetious anyway; like the call is really going to be influenced by my personal preference. To avoid any further confusion, that preference was best expressed in the first of the two statements you just quoted. Can we move on?
 
Dymanic said:
You have no idea. If it weren't for sticky notes, I'd have a hard time getting through a day. But since winning this point seems so important to you, I'll concede that I may not have expressed my position equally well in every single one of the posts in which I've now addressed that. Score: Belz 1, Dymanic 0. Happy now?
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It's not about winning. You were simply clearly wrong in saying you hadn't said it. And I have a thing against wrong.1
I was being a bit facetious anyway
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Seemed serious enough to me. Anyway. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Next time use a smiley.

1 Wrong ate all my chocolate cookies one day. That's why.
 
The Atheist said:
Panic, to me, would be people queueing for Tamiflu, stopping travel, closing borders...
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Which has happened. Several European (and Chinese) carriers stopped travel (some US ones may have lowered their flights considerably), and several cruise liners actually avoided ports. A few idiotic US politicians have attempted to re-start the border argument using the flu outbreak as a springboard as well. As for the queueing, I can't say much on that because the most common use I've seen it being used for in the circles I know are dog owners for treating suspected parvo cases, and outside of that stocks are always rather low around here anyway.

The Atheist said:
I was clear all the way through - we just have different ways of looking at it, and the #4 above covers it all.

You think there's been an over-reaction, and I think the reaction has been about right - barring media, which are not answerable to public or government.

Whether the current situation and response will help or hinder future efforts, we'll have to wait & see.
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I can live with that and agree our perspectives are the primary difference. I don't believe that you or I are saying anything so drastically different from each other that would warrant more persistence.

Not to move goals or anything, but what do you think of the current response to the swine flu in relation to the strain of rabies that is currently being reported in the US? It's crossing species in a manner that makes transmission to humans a possibility, which would place it as a greater health risk than the current influenza problem.
 
skeptigirl said:
Again, NZ has a smaller population and more control over people entering the country.
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Another thing is, the reason why we've been successful in keeping it out is because the people were quarantined immediately and it seem that no extras have arrived since.

In a full-scale pandemic, I'd give us no more chance than any other country of keeping us free of it, unless we close the airports, which would be economic suicide.

skeptigirl said:
Right, no more dangerous than a virus which kills 36,000 people a year.
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You need to upgrade that to 250,000. [minimum]

Lots of people not in USA die of the 'flu annually. Hell, we get a few hundred on a tiny island.

Wildcat, et al argument is that it doesn't matter because there are already people who die from infuenza.

Which is exactly how Ford saw the Pinto.
 
A US resident has died in the US from H1N1.

It was buried in the article (and certainly not the headline) that she suffered from an unrelated chronic illness.
 
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skeptigirl said:
I don't assess that explanation as back peddling. I assess it as longstanding tension between ethnic groups over the pigs which some people want and others see as a bother. I would bet there is also as much class warfare as it is ethnic warfare. Just as Lou Dobbs blames immigrants, I can picture a lot of Cairo residents who look down on the poor dump residents. The fact there is a religious delineation probably makes it a notch worse.

I am guessing this was indeed an excuse. Could it be back peddling? Sure. But that's not my first guess.
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It's back-peddling because they first gave one excuse for killing the piggies (swine flu) and then changed the story and said it was for "general health" reasons once that initial excuse got exposed as hollow.

By any definition I'm aware of that's back-peddling.
 
gumboot said:
It's back-peddling because they first gave one excuse for killing the piggies (swine flu) and then changed the story and said it was for "general health" reasons once that initial excuse got exposed as hollow.

By any definition I'm aware of that's back-peddling.
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To be fair to the Egyptians, we in Britain have a history of slaughtering juicy cattle over the mania related to Mad-Cow disease a few years back. (Or was that foot-and-mouth? Or both?).
 
Undesired Walrus said:
To be fair to the Egyptians, we in Britain have a history of slaughtering juicy cattle over the mania related to Mad-Cow disease a few years back. (Or was that foot-and-mouth? Or both?).
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The difference being that humans can get Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease from eating beef infected with BSE, whereas humans cannot get the swine flu from eating infected pig.
 
gumboot said:
The difference being that humans can get Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease from eating beef infected with BSE, whereas humans cannot get the swine flu from eating infected pig.
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Yet..

What would the media do without that word? 'Could', 'may' and 'perhaps' can extent an article from ten words to three-hundred and fifty pages of tremendous fear-mongering.
 
Undesired Walrus said:
Yet..

What would the media do without that word? 'Could', 'may' and 'perhaps' can extent an article from ten words to three-hundred and fifty pages of tremendous fear-mongering.
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You've missed the point - BSE is transferrable to humans through consumption; that is how you "catch" it.

You cannot get H1N1-A from eating pork.
 
Belz... said:
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But even if you're correct, it changes nothing of what I said. Telling someone you won't bother with evidence doesn't work because it denies lurkers and fence-sitters said evidence as well.
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I had already posted the supporting evidence. Your lecture on this matter falls in the d'uh category but it wasn't relevant to my reply to WC.
 
WildCat said:
Which isn't hyped to the hysterical extremes this strain is.
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Ignorance of the disease, influenza, is a serious health education deficiency in this country. So you are saying because people are ignorant of the hazard, a chance to focus attention on the hazard should be ignored, people are ignorant of the hazard, so be it.
 
The Atheist said:
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You need to upgrade that to 250,000. [minimum]

Lots of people not in USA die of the 'flu annually. Hell, we get a few hundred on a tiny island.

Wildcat, et al argument is that it doesn't matter because there are already people who die from infuenza.

Which is exactly how Ford saw the Pinto.
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Sorry about the ethnocentric numbers. I only recently found some estimating worldwide deaths so I've been using the numbers I was familiar with. I tried to add the clause, in the US alone, but it gets tedious to keep inserting.
 
gumboot said:
It's back-peddling because they first gave one excuse for killing the piggies (swine flu) and then changed the story and said it was for "general health" reasons once that initial excuse got exposed as hollow.

By any definition I'm aware of that's back-peddling.
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Or a whistle blower pointing out the real reason for a government action. Depends on who "they" are here.
 
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