Swine Flu outbreak

WildCat said:
Go ahead, show why this particular flu is the OMG killah flu eleventy!11!!!111!!

Because all evidence to date is that it is quite ordinary as far as flus go.
Click to expand...

Pandemic doesn't mean everybody dies, it means everybody gets exposed. More people have been infected by this one strain of influenza faster, than any normal kind. Is this hard to comprehend?
 
WildCat said:
Go ahead, show why this particular flu is the OMG killah flu
Click to expand...
More false dichotomy. Somewhere between a case of the sniffles and "Captain Tripps" is an epidemiological event capable of causing enough social disruption, and posing a serious enough threat to enough people, to justify implementing some basic interventions. Among these, closing schools has been shown to be one of the most effective if properly timed. The primary function of public schools in the U.S. is government-sponsored child care anyway.

Because all evidence to date is that it is quite ordinary as far as flus go.
Click to expand...
Except that it has the potential to affect maybe five times as many people.

Not nearly as contagious.
Click to expand...
True. Contagious enough, though.

You don't even have to prove it in our court system. Just pursue it enough to make settling more cost effective than fighting it.
Click to expand...
You could initiate a nuisance suit any time; pandemic or no pandemic; schools open or schools closed.

the lawsuits are already flying:
Click to expand...
Lawsuits are always flying. That example has no more to do with what we're talking about than any other; those parents want to keep their kids home.
 
Dymanic said:
More false dichotomy. Somewhere between a case of the sniffles and "Captain Tripps" is an epidemiological event capable of causing enough social disruption, and posing a serious enough threat to enough people, to justify implementing some basic interventions. Among these, closing schools has been shown to be one of the most effective if properly timed. The primary function of public schools in the U.S. is government-sponsored child care anyway.
Click to expand...
The "social disruption" is the hysterical overreaction to the swine flu, not the swine flu itself.

Except that it has the potential to affect maybe five times as many people.
Click to expand...
Oh, here we go with "potential" again. All flu strains have this "potential". So what?

You could initiate a nuisance suit any time; pandemic or no pandemic; schools open or schools closed.


Lawsuits are always flying. That example has no more to do with what we're talking about than any other; those parents want to keep their kids home.
Click to expand...
No kidding. And other parents will want money when little precious gets the sniffles. Doesn't change the fact that schools, like other institutions, are leery of lawsuits and will take measures to avoid them, even if the lawsuit is without merit.
 
WildCat said:
The "social disruption" is the hysterical overreaction to the swine flu, not the swine flu itself.
Click to expand...
There probably is quite a bit of truth to that. It's analogous to an evacuation order on the approach of a hurricane. It causes quite a bit of social disruption, but if they call it right, and people respond, and lives are saved, it's considered an acceptable price to pay. If the storm changes course and heads back out to sea, the price is paid but the benefit is never received. Perhaps in the future, science will permit perfect predictions.

All flu strains have this "potential".
Click to expand...
No, they don't, due to pre-existing immunity.
 
MikeSun5 said:
Just heard on the 11 o'clock news: First case of swine flu confirmed in south Florida. A 17 year old girl who goes to a high school a few miles from my house. She is "recovering" at home with the sniffles, but they shut the school down.
This type of hysteria is so typical of the American media. Is all this fear and panic necessary if the problem can be solved with simple hygiene?
Call me crazy, but I'm not scared of anything that can be defeated by soap and handi-wipes.
Click to expand...

You're not scared of Ebola?
 
WildCat said:
The "social disruption" is the hysterical overreaction to the swine flu, not the swine flu itself.


Oh, here we go with "potential" again. All flu strains have this "potential". So what?


No kidding. And other parents will want money when little precious gets the sniffles. Doesn't change the fact that schools, like other institutions, are leery of lawsuits and will take measures to avoid them, even if the lawsuit is without merit.
Click to expand...
It all goes back to my original point, for which I was vilified by the "you're too stupid to understand the terminology" crowd:
"Pandemic" and "Epidemic" are semantically loaded terms, guaranteed to cause panic within certain groups of people.
Hell- ma Headline stating "Hangnails epidemic among guitar players" would guarantee a loss of business in "open Mike" bars, due to panic.
Politicians are especially sensitive to this, and will always over-react.
 
Oh crap, I play guitar. Is there really a hangnail epidemic? I'm wearing surgical gloves from now on!!!!!
 
skeptigirl said:
Of course you should be concerned about all influenza. That goes in the D'uh category.

And I already said it, very clearly, so why you're telling me is bizarre.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=4672819#post4672819
Click to expand...

What's bizarre is your lack of perspective as to the severity of the risk. You have a higher risk of dying from accidental injury, diabetes, Alzheimer's, or heart disease, among other things, than you do from influenza. Top 15 (PDF) causes of death from 2005 numbers:

Cause of Death/Age Range | Number | Percent All causes | 2,448,017 | 100.0
Diseases of heart | 652,091 | 26.6
Malignant neoplasms | 559,312 | 22.8
Cerebrovascular diseases | 143,579 | 5.9
Chronic lower respiratory diseases | 130,933 | 5.3
Accidents (unintentional injuries) | 117,809 | 4.8
Diabetes mellitus | 75,119 | 3.1
Alzheimer’s disease | 71,599 | 2.9
Influenza and pneumonia | 63,001 | 2.6
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis | 43,901 | 1.8
Septicemia | 34,136 | 1.4
Intentional self-harm | 32,637 | 1.3
Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis | 27,530 | 1.1
Essential (primary) hypertension and hypertensive renal disease | 24,902 | 1.0
Parkinson’s disease | 19,544 | 0.8
Assault (homicide) | 18,124 | 0.7

And that table is just a general, non-contextual, not-considering-individual-health-or-healthcare set of statistics. Furthermore, influenza and pneumonia are listed together as a cause of death because of the types of infections they are, but they are not always related (and breaking them apart would set them further down the list). Not taken into account with those general numbers are age groups (though they are in the PDF), ethnic and economic groupings (though the former is in the PDF), occupation, related health issues (like AIDS or less serious diseases), healthcare availability, and so on and so forth. Adjusted per capita and regionally, the actual risk of death by seasonal influenza is remarkably small. The chance of the average individual slipping and falling in their bathtub or getting hit by a bus is nearly three times as likely than dying of influenza.

It's hysteria to get overly worked up about this pandemic as much as is currently taking place. I liken it to the hysteria about terrorism just seven years ago, where people were rushing to try to find ways to hedge themselves against some particular type of terrorist attack in the US, while the chances of being struck by lightning were higher than the chance of being a victim in a terrorist attack. Hell, if we went by media reports-- with their exposes about how workplace cubicles have more germs in them than the average household toilet-- the only way anyone would be able to operate would be to live out our lives in some germ-phobic state full of OCD-like behavior.

I don't think anyone here holds anything against the CDC or WHO for their efforts in trying to track, contain, and develop a vaccine for this new strain of flu. What they are doing is working to improve our available healthcare options, which is better for society as a whole. But to blow their actions out of proportion on the individual level is ridiculous and unproductive, and it fosters a mindset of fear where it only damages our quality of life instead of improving it, which is what these organizations are trying to improve.
 
WildCat said:
Babies don't have immunity to last year's flu either...
Click to expand...
Right. And every year, some of them die from it. If, at any given time, five times as many people are contagious with flu -- even if most of those people experience only mild illness -- what impact would you expect that to have on the number of deaths in infants and young children?
 
Dymanic said:
Right. And every year, some of them die from it. If, at any given time, five times as many people are contagious with flu -- even if most of those people experience only mild illness -- what impact would you expect that to have on the number of deaths in infants and young children?
Click to expand...
Weren't you supposed to show how H1N1 is deadlier than the other strains of flu?
 
WildCat said:
Weren't you supposed to show how H1N1 is deadlier than the other strains of flu?
Click to expand...
There are two ways in which one virus might be "deadlier" than another. It could be more virulent, resulting in a higher case fatality rate, even if it infected the same number of people. Nothing indicates that this is the case with this virus. Or it could have a higher attack rate, infecting more people, but not killing those it infected at any higher rate than usual. I'm not going to "show" that this virus is going to do that, because that remains to be seen. It appears to have the potential to do that. If it has a high enough attack rate, it could kill more people than the typical seasonal flu even if the case fatality rate were lower. Is the mathematics of this too difficult for you?
 
picture.php
 
I am getting a lot of enjoyment from identical arguments advanced by CTists and anti-CTists, best evinced by posts from Wildcat.

I will repeat exactly what I just said to some ignoramus who claims that it's all about government control:

The other side of the coin is while this, like H5N1 and SARS, will probably turn out to be a damp squib, the potential for disaster is real.

I said from the start that the biggest danger - in my eyes - is that when the real threat comes along, people will think it's just another scare.

What's needed on all sides of the issue is a deal of common sense:

In this case, it looks like we'll be lucky, although influenza viruses can mutate at any time and it could still become a serious health risk. It is becoming pretty obvious that it is milder than usual 'flu, indicating good public resistance levels.

If the disease progresses, as looks increasingly likely, most people will catch it and many will die. Since these are extra deaths to whatever will occur from influenza this year, one more is too many in my book.

If we can mitigate risks and display preparedness for a genuine threat, both at the same time, let's use that opportunity.

The thing which bothers me most is the naysayers inability to see that an already-crowded and overworked health system will have enormous problems if - more likely when - a worldwide health threat emerges.

It is sillier to ignore the issue than over-state it.

Lovely to see two sides of the CT argument agreeing with each other, though.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom