Hard to dismiss a mortality rate of 62 out of 800. This may sound alarmist, but everyone should start making some plans now and be prepared as best you can. Mrs. rimrocker used to work at CDC and she is quite upset over this one... according to MSNBC this morning, it's a combo of swine, bird, and human flu which has scientists "concerned."
The good news is that flu season is coming to an end, so any cases of this will be much more obvious. I suspect this will not be too bad in the end.
It's already in the U.S with cases of it in California and Texas. I heard in the news that there were two 16 year old boys near San Antonio who got it and survived. They said the troubling part about it was that they did not travel to Mexico and don't know how they got it.
This flu really got my attention when Mexico City shut down all major public activities -- i'm trying to remember when i've ever heard of that before for a virus.
8 cases in NYC now http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/04/25/nyregion/flu-newyork-tests.html?hpw If it grows to about 1000 cases, the economy of the city can be in severe recession. Check out the experience of Hong Kong, Singapore during SARS
That part is truly frightening. The Great Influenza, about the 1918 flu, reads like a grand scale horror novel. It details how quickly society ceases to function when only a few are infected; as fear of contamination and the actual illness spread, basic humanity breaks down. Why bring Kleenexes/groceries to an ill neighbor if there's a chance you might be infected? And it steamrolled communities throughout the US. People with healthy immune systems were strangely the most vulnerable in that one, as normally appropriate immunological responses were overwhelmed, and proved lethal. 100 million, gone, in a matter of months. "Every person who spits is helping the Kaiser." I think I'll go start building my fallout shelter now. Can the Obama-as-antichristers help me out with some pointers?
I was reading about this earlier and planning on starting a thread but Rimrocker beat me to it. There certainly is cause to worry but I'm not sure panic is in order. The CDC and WHO have been preparing for years for a possible pandemic. At the sametime reasonable precautions like being careful about spreading it are in order.
This is scary, man! I have family in Mexico so that's not good. My guy is currently down in the valley visiting his grandma and relatives who are visiting from Mexico. If I don't post within next several weeks then you know I died from this. Ok, I'm freaking out. /end freaked out rant
no joke i have family in several parts of mexico including the border towns....not good. i was just in mexico about a month and half ago. my sister decided to have her wedding in ixtapa, zihuatanejo to be exact. thats not to far from mexico city. im becoming pretty concerned. what can be done though???
Seriously we are drafting a guy from CHINA? Oh man this is gonna suck. Has anyone ever seen him play? I didn't know they played bball in China.
