One of my employees had to leave town three days ago because her dad had the flu and was in the hospital in Brownsville. I heard today that it was confirmed that he has the swine type. Now all the rest of the employees are demanding that she not work for at least a week once she gets back into town. I came in to work around 2:30 today and a server who had worked in the morning apparently wasn't feeling well and had a slight fever. As soon as I got there another server asked if she could talk to me and told me about the sick server and told me that she was making everyone nervous, and how they were sanitizing everything that she touched. She was supposed to work the night shift, but I convinced her to go home, though she doesn't have insurance and doesn't want to go see a doctor unless she starts feeling even worse... *sigh* It's starting to really hit home... I'm going to Barbados in a week and a half, dammit! They better not shut down the borders until after my freaking vacation!
At the University of Houston-Downtown, officials on Thursday said a student has a “probable” diagnosis of swine flu. Officials expect test results today, the university said on its Web site. The student, who had traveled to Mexico recently, had the upper respiratory symptoms associated with the flu.
Rimrocker, you mentioned attending an emergency simulation a few pages back. Without divulging any confidences, and as vaguely as you wish to respond, are you (and/or your wife) currently involved in epidemiology or emergency response on some level? Your updates seem authoritative, and have been most helpful.
I know you guys like to get pumped up, so... MASS GRAVE IN HOUSON HOUSTON—The Internet is abuzz with videos suggesting the U.S. government is getting ready for a mass fatality or pandemic situation. 11 News video April 13, 2009 View larger E-mail Clip More Video All you have to do to find them is search “mass graves” on YouTube. One of the videos was shot here in Houston. It featured a multitude of numbered crypts – there looked to be hundreds of them – in a bulldozed field. The guys who shot the video are friends who’ve known each other since their school days in Spring Branch. “I asked Robbie, ‘Hey, let’s go check it out,’” Eddie Sanchez said. “Film it. I went there. It’s there,” Rob Rippa said. But what exactly was the “it” they were filming? Rippa has his own theory. “All FEMA-backed,” he said. 11 News: “You think it’s all backed by FEMA?” Rippa: “Oh, I don’t think. I know.” So 11 News decided to see for ourselves. First we found the field, which is located in northwest Houston. From the back side of the property, we could see dump trucks hard at work. The field happens to be the Houston National Cemetery, which is run by the Dept. of Veterans Affairs. So why are they suddenly preparing so many graves? “There’s nothing secret, and there’s nothing related to what we read from YouTube,” Jorge Lopez, Director of the Houston National Cemetery, said. Lopez says the cemetery is building 6,000 concrete crypts. He says the cemetery will go through that many crypts in just three years. The crypts will house veterans, their spouses and eligible children. In fact, some 3,000 burials take place at the Houston National Cemetery each year. The numbers have been on the rise. In response, the government is using a radically new procedure – pre-burying thousands of empty crypts and covering them up with dirt. They say the entire field will then be sodded. When a burial service takes place, the grass and soil will be removed from one of the crypts, and the casket lowered into it. “This saves a lot of time and money and maintenance,” Lopez said. The new process could by why some have jumped to other conclusions about the new graves. Lopez says there is no way. “No. Definitely not. And I’ll be honest, if I knew, I wouldn’t be having this conversation with you … It would be top secret,” Lopez said. We also checked with FEMA, the Dept. of Health and Human Services and the Texas Department of Health. They all denied that the government is preparing mass gravesites. Still, Texas officials said that they have worked with funeral directors in the past to determine the state’s mortuary resources in case of a catastrophe. But do guys like Rippa and Sanchez buy it? “I really don’t,” Rippa said. “I wouldn’t go so far to say I’d rule it out, can’t say that either. I just don’t believe what they say.” Rippa says he and his friends will rely on what they learn on the Internet, and what they find out on their own.
Apparently we have to refer to the disease as "H1N1 Flu" and not "Swine Flu" as it is giving pork a bad name.
It sounds like most of the cases that are confirmed in the US are from people who got sick LAST week. Most have recovered at home. It doesn't seem to me that its moving very fast. My sister in law is a teacher and she said when the regular flu hits their school, they'll have 4-5 students out in every class at a time. This one seems to be getting one student at a time. I also keep thinking that this thing has been going around a while and they are just now finding it because they are looking for it. EDIT: So they updated the confirmed cases number day over day today. About 30 new cases confirmed. Is this the limit of what they can test in a day, or are we only really seeing 30 cases or so a day. You would expect in a spreading flu to see exponential incrases, not incremental increases of about 30-40 a day. You'd expect the number to double every day or something.
Yeah, it seems like this is the case. I know the girl who had it at Episcopal HS had it last week (before we knew anything about it) and recovered without even going to the hospital. Just to be clear, I think closing the schools etc. is the right thing to do. We don’t know much about this virus, so why take any chances? Better safe than sorry. But it is kind of funny (although not at all surprising) how the media is treating it. You would think this is the black plague or something. Less than 200 cases in the entire country and only 1 death involving an infant from Mexico with pre-existing health problems. If nothing else, maybe this is a good dress rehearsal for when/if a real pandemic hits our country.
I agree totally. There is still a big "unknown" about this virus. I agree that if they confirm a case at a school, shut it down a couple days. Why not be safe? Even if 1 out of 500 die from this flu in the US, if you can prevent that 1 its worth it to make kids stay home a couple days. I'm starting to see scare tactic emails show up in my email box talking about huge numbers of hidden cases and how the country is going to run out of Tamiflu. People suck sometimes. I also agree with the dress rehearsal and I think I mentioned this already. I think the CDC and the WHO is using this relatively mild form of an outbreak as practice and prep on all their new plans they implemented after SARS and Bird Flu. There are these big plans in place in case the pandemic gets to level 5. I think they called it early a level 5 so countries could put their plans in place and see how their response is. It should be really helpful for when/if we ever do see some kind of "super flu".
No, I think if 1 out of 500 people that contract the disease die. Not if 1 out of 500 people in the US. LOL. I'm talking a 0.2% mortality rate of infection. So if 20,000 people get it in the US, 40 would die. (I'm sure the mortality rate would actually be higher since the regular flu mortality rate is actually higher than that)
Here's the Sci-Guy's take from today: May 01, 2009 Is there a disconnect between WHO and local docs? There's something I've noticed during the last day or two that's troubling when it comes to swine influenza. I don't know if this is a trend, and I don't entirely understand why it's happening. Let's start with the rhetoric from the World Health Organization, which is on the verge of declaring the first worldwide pandemic in more than four decades. The language we have heard from Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general of the WHO, has been downright scary at times with such claims as, "All of humanity is under threat." Contrast that with private comments I have heard from local physicians who are actually handling flu cases in Texas. One doctor I spoke with late Thursday grumbled that public health officials are making a really big deal out of something that has caused problems that pale in scope to traditional influenza. Others have made similar comments. • First, we should be clear that the vast majority of flu-like illnesses in Houston are not swine flu. According to Kathy Barton, the more-than-competent spokeswoman for Houston's health department, only about 5 percent of the city's flu cases are type-A influenza. Those are the cases sent to CDC for sub-typing to determine if they are swine influenza. Let me repeat that: even if you have the flu in Houston, there's at least a 95 percent chance it is not swine influenza. • Secondly, physicians are finally starting to talk openly about the very clear likelihood that swine influenza is not usually deadly if caught early and treated in a competent facility. A Los Angeles Times story captures this sentiment: "This virus doesn't have anywhere near the capacity to kill like the 1918 virus," which claimed an estimated 50 million victims worldwide, said Richard Webby, a leading influenza virologist at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. Initially the new swine flu virus raised alarms because, like the 1918 Spanish Flu, both arose in the spring, both seemed to strike young and healthy people, and both were H1N1 strains. But since then scientists have begun to recognize that the new virus appears to lack certain molecular traits that made the 1918 virus a killer. • Finally, there's some evidence that the rate of new cases of swine influenza in Mexico may be beginning to slow down, which strikes me as significant because with surveillance higher than ever in that country you would expect to find the opposite if swine influenza were tracking toward a pandemic status. And yet, despite this, WHO officials spoke on Thursday about the possibility that they may soon elevate swine flu to Phase 6, the highest alert status. I don't write any of this to downplay the possibility that this disease could become a pandemic, or pose very serious consequences to our society. And I applaud the federal government's response to proactively position resources and prepare for the worst. This is sensible. We are going to see more cases and more deaths. This is what influenza does. But the rhetoric from the World Health Organization is puzzling, especially in light of these recent developments. Local physicians say it has caused fear-stricken and panicked patients to fill their waiting rooms. Is it really necessary to scare people when the reality suggests that this problem is entirely manageable with the resources the world can array against an infectious disease? I'll discuss a bit later today the issue of why this might pose a problem during future potential pandemics. LINK
This morning when I came into work, there was an e-mail regarding the swine flu. My boss mentioned something about it and said that on the news this morning they weren't hinting at the fact that they're blowing this up as a cover-up for something else that's going on... Reminded me of that e-mail above regarding the mass graves. She was like, "It really makes you think about what they're up to, huh huh." Ha ha, christ. I mean, yeah, they're certainly blowing it up, but I think it's wise to close the schools and take every precaution. It sucks that hospitals are being flooded with people who are paranoid and don't even have a fever, but it's still good to bring attention to the issue. We don't know that much about it, so better safe than sorry. It's a good exercise in our preparedness in case of an emergency, and I'm glad it's being taken seriously.
As already noted, Mrs. rimrocker used to work at CDC. She was not an epidemiologist, but worked in the area where much of the information was gathered and responses planned. (As an aside, her office mate was one of the first two doctors on the first Ebola outbreak and made the discovery that it was not airborne.) I work for a Federal agency that manages public lands. I'm on a National Incident Management Team (IMT), which means we usually respond to large, complex wildfires. However, we are All-Risk and through the National Response Framework, can be called out to assist other agencies that have the lead for other types of incidents. For instance, a few years ago, IMTs (not mine) were called in by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to assist with quarantining industrial poultry operations and disposing of chickens in California who had been exposed to Exotic Newcastle Disease. In addition to the usual fire, flood, earthquake, hurricane stuff, IMTs have also done Shuttle part recovery and responded to 9-11. Typically, on non-fire incidents such as hurricanes, we're usually doing logistical support for agencies or communities... supplies, communications, planning, etc. (There are 15 national teams and about 35 regional teams.) According the National Response Framework, in a medical emergency we could be called on to provide "communications, aircraft, and the establishment of base camps for deployed Federal public health and medical teams." All that said, I'm not too concerned about that happening. My big worry is fire season. We have about a month before big fires start in the SW and we'll likely have big fires across the West until late Fall. The weather patterns suggest Northern California will be a big concern this year. If we get into the beginning of flu season (or the tail end of this Spring outbreak) and we still have big fires that take 1,000 or more people working 16 hours a day, sleeping on the ground, and eating in a communal mess tent, our operational capacity is likely to be greatly diminished to say the least. And on California fires, because of the population and the constant threats to private property, you tend to see a whole bunch of people from all over California and the country... which obviously creates huge concerns about the transmission of any flu bug. By October, everyone in camp is sick anyway... spend 5 months living with a bunch of people who push themselves to their physical limits and are lucky to find time to bathe every other day and at some point your immune system just gives and you get what we call the "Camp Crud." If I go out on a fire in late October (hello Santa Ana winds), I just assume I'll be sick and rundown for a couple of weeks after I get back home. This flu thing gives that reality an unwanted added dimension. I suspect we'll have a hard time filling incident positions after mid-September if it looks like this flu strain will still be around because people will not want to take that risk.
If this thing keeps being a "risk" I would think there would be a vaccine rolling out by October when you are in your tents and such. As govermnemt first responders you would probably receive the first round of treatment if needed.
Very cool; thanks for explaining your background. I hadn't considered the effect of even common illness on emergency response before. As I am decidedly not one of them, I'm always amazed by the people who run towards the wildfire, or [gasp] towards the Ebola outbreak. (Not knowing whether it was airborne, and still going in? I think my insides just liquefied only imagining that physician's decision tree there.) Yep. With regards to Chicken Little media and Biden's apparently overzealous warnings to avoid confined public places, a decent argument, slightly wonkish (I've omitted the cited chart in the link), in favor of the paradox of (over-?) alarmism: Ezra Klein, TAP: So for those claiming, "Yeah, they're making a big deal out of this as a dry run for when something big actually happens," the very act of raising the alarum might prevent this from becoming that something big. (Then again, I might be beginning to fall into that "people who are paranoid and don't even have a fever" population subset. I pretend that everyone not wearing a mask that talks to me has something stuck in their teeth, so that they'll self-consciously cover their mouths when speaking. I refuse to shake people's hands anymore. Instead, out of my right sleeve socket I offer a crudely-fashioned wire hangar, with a miniature Rockets #1 foam finger attached to the end. People are generally polite, but I'm pretty sure they can spot the spot the prosthetic as fake, either that or the bulge of my real arm held behind my back. Somehow, they seem to know that I didn't actually volunteer over spring break, removing land mines in the Sahara.)
