Why can't you just admit that you over reacted a bit on this one? It happens, we are human, not a big deal, nobody views you any differently. Also it is easy to second guess doctors with all of the information we now have access to - especially concerning something that doctors, or anyone for that matter, know much about.
I overreacted? How did I overreact? How did I change my life even one iota??? I didn't react at all aside from making some posts in this thread. I don't think the WHO overreacted...I think they followed their playbook. When you see a virus spreading across borders that APPEARS to have a high mortality rate, you don't wait to take action afterwards to see if it doesn't kill a bunch of people. Different from hurricane preparation, because hurricane preparation doesn't move the hurricane away from you....but taking precautions with a virus can keep it from spreading further.
I spent all that money on surgical masks and hand sanitizers for nothing??? Telling my boss to go to hell and "hunkering down" for the end of the world now seems like a mistake...
So what exactly should they have done? Waited to see if 5000 people died, at this point it would have spread all over the world and be too late to do anything?
So far 30 people have confirmed to have died from this virus...many of the numbers you had heard in the past were overblown. The danger from this flu was WAY overblown to the point where people were talking about the pandemic flu of 1918. The media was shoving this down our throats nearly 24/7, people were talking about being afraid to leave their homes. Schools shutdown, many businesses suffered (the media sure as hell didn't suffer), and other were quarantined in other countries. I really don't care who (WHO, lol) got involved, this virus WAS NOT anymore virulent than any other flu virus that we see on a regular basis, contrary to what the media wanted everyone to believe. Yet it received so much more attention...why do you think that is? "Swine flu"...how sensational is that? Pigs giving humans a highly virulent virus...that's one hell of a story. I guess we'll be okay until the 'gizzly flu' or the 'platypus flu' comes out next. Just as long as it has another catchy name, I'd hate for the media to have to sensationalize something blase like 'bug flu', heavens.... I have serious doubts about Mexico's ability to provide good healthcare to it's population, there is a reason that we get all of Mexico's complicated medical cases flown to TMC. The fact that people can't get good medical attention there is probably a reason why this virus 'seemed' so deadly. Seriously, why don't we react this way every year to the 36,000 (over 1000 times more deadly so far!!!! oh noes) or so death to other flu viruses yearly? Because it's boring...and the media knows it.
Probably because you only know this after the fact, and the point of raising alert levels is to deal with things like this before the fact. The initial information was that lots of people were suddenly dying of a virus in Mexico. And within days, that virus was being spots in other parts of the world. Knowing what we know now, yes, it was overblown. Knowing what we knew back then? Hell no. You think the WHO should wait on warnings until after thousands of people are dead and a virus has spread beyond containment?
Sorry, I'm just thinking of statistics and current history...when was the last time something like that happened? Almost 50 years ago? Medicine and information has advanced a lot since then. Erroneous numbers, media pile-on, and general ignorance lead to this short lived panic, I think WHO did what they thought they had to do, I don't fault them. I'm just saying how overblown this whole 'epidemic' is thanks to media attention/sensationalism and not to actual danger. 20 some people died from a flu bug, others from other reasons not related to it, now all the sudden we have folks saying "Well, are we suppose to wait until xxxx many people die before we start wearing masks and putting people in quarantine? Lets do it now! For god's sake think of the children!!!" If we had this kind of panic from every disease outbreak(that doesn't have a catchy name) then we'd be in a constant state of fear.
I have to agree with this post 100 percent. The way the media covered this has been ridiculous. Yes, it was something that needed monitoring. But, no, we didn't need the media whipping people into a frenzy when they had very little information to work with. All the school closings made me
Major, there is no containment. There was much, much less travel in 1918, and so many fewer people, and everyone got the virus. This gets back to the question I posted above. I guess they just try to slow these things down so they can crank up the anitviral production.
To be clear, my problem was never with the WHO (except Pete Townsend) or CDC. My problem is the media. From the get-go, they treated all this like it was the black plague. And what make it worse, is that now, when most people have accepted that it's basically just a minor nuisance, the media is STILL treating it the same way.
honestly, the media didn't need to do anything more than repeat the WHO or CDC to create that impression. go back and read the quotes of those doctors. no spin is necessary.
this is what i'm talking about....the media didn't close down the schools. superintendents weren't meeting with katie couric. the administrators were meeting with public health advisors who were saying it was spreading and it was better to be safe than sorry. imagine if it had gone the other way...if the mortality rate we thought we had in mexico were accurate...and if it continued to spread. imagine a school not closing down despite knowing they had a case...and some people got exposed and sick and maybe they lose a couple.....that guy is fired, and that's the least of his worries. those were the scenarios the public health advisors were throwing out to administration and school boards.
Then I presume you're not aware, doctor, that it's believed that the Spanish Flu was a swine flu as well?? http://www.symptoms101.com/med/archives/2005/05/spanish_flu_swi.php Swine Flu is a form of influenza. Although swine flu is normally virulent only in pigs, it is thought to have crossed over to humans in the early part of the 20th century, causing the Spanish Flu pandemic. I think all of you guys stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
And yet medicine doesn't have a way to deal with the vast majority of viruses. Especially ones that we know little about. Again - at what point in a pandemic do you think precautions *should* start taking place? What is the last outbreak of a new bug that no one had experience with that spread across the world within a week?
Great internet searching there Max, really proud of you man. Did you happen to read the article you linked or are you just trying to give me a hard time? "Despite the fact that only one person died, alarmed public health officials decided that action must be taken to head off a major pandemic and they urged that every person in the United States be vaccinated for the disease. The vaccination program was plagued by delays and public relations problems but about 24 percent of the population was vaccinated by the time the program was cancelled. The vaccine was blamed for 25 deaths (more people died from the vaccine than died from the "swine flu" itself) and a small, but statistically significant, rise in the incidence of a rare illness called Guillain-Barré syndrome or GBS." Sounds about right...they over reacted about this virus and it caused more damage than the virus itself...sound familiar? Can you not make the connection about how the spreading of the virus via swine to man would help hype up the virus more than the typical boring 'regular' yearly influenza viruses that hit us yearly? I know you're trying to make a point and will stand by it regardless of what anyone says, but can you not effing understand my point about media involvement and the worldwide implications of their sensationalism?
Oh brother... So Major which viruses are pandemically wiping out the human race that we have no way to deal with? Seriously, 'enquiring minds' want to know... AIDS? Hepatitis? West Nile? oh oh wait...it's Avian flu right? Again, what dont you understand about my statement regarding media involvement in the panic that was caused? I'm not going to repost the numbers, if you're going to ignore them that's your prerogative, Bobby. If you read Madmax's article you'd see we have experience with Swine flu before and we reacted to it just a poorly in the past as we are now... Oh, BTW, which flu strains in the past few years HAVEN'T spread across the world? That's the real question...
Exactly. What is the down side to being overprotective of our children? It's pretty results orientated thinking to criticize the reaction to this virus.
People are so damn stupid sometimes. If this wasn't "overblown", they'd be whining about how the CDC,WHO, and other health agencies "didn't do enough". There were already complaints about how Mexico treated their reporting. Jobs like these are ridiculously hard and low reward because success means more of the same with the status quo. On the other hand, once you reach a tipping point with disease, there's no way to put it back in the box. And this #@$$ isn't over. It isn't over. It's out there mutating into stronger or weaker strains, and speaking of the Spanish Influenza, it wasn't the first pass that killed all of those people. You want to know why the swine flu is dangerous? Because the average person doesn't throw down with pigs 24/7, so our immune system doesn't come in contact with their viruses. We're lucky Tamiflu and other anti-virals work on it. The next time might be different, or it might be more of the same. You want know where the drama lies? No one knew at the time that our treatment would effective. So it's not time to hole up, but have some appreciation and general awareness of what's going on. Some people are going to panic no matter what they hear. It doesn't automatically imply that the news itself is overreactionary. -Beginning to hope that sore throat was something more...
