Might I suggest "Pandemic Potential" and "Cytokine Storm" as two pretty sweet death metal band names? Worst case scenario, as two pretty sweet death metal tribute band names? Yeah, it was a mfer. Chances are someone in your family died from it. I think I had a great uncle who never saw his twenties because of it. I used to like reading in school textbooks about the Black Death or 1666 London plague, content with the knowledge that we were no longer backward, knew the germ theory of disease, and could handle such things if they occurred today. Then I read about the 1918 influenza. Modern times, more or less modern medicine. They knew, but were powerless to stop it. Not saying that this Mexico virus is that disease, but when the next big influenza hits, we'll be equally ineffective in stopping it. Depending on how deep our tamiflu bunkers are and the hang time it takes to manufacture 300 million doses of a vaccine once it's actually synthesized (Katrina did not reassure me.), I'm guessing all our modern technology and knowledge will afford us is the ability to watch live webcams of people as they progress through the illness, as it spreads closer and closer to us. Good luck; hope you feel better. If indeed the strains outside of Mexico are weakened, maybe it's better to suffer through the Spring Breaker version of this thing before/if it mutates (back) into stronger stuff. If you start feeling better give us a shout-out; we can meet up for a combined Rockets Game 5 viewing / (Chicken pox-like) weak disease strain communicability party.
Sorry, I missed your post earlier. The media do tend to fixate on the things that will titillate. That said, I don't think SARS was overblown. It had a reported 9.6% mortality rate and spread fast around the globe. There is lingering suspicion that the mortality rate in China was significantly higher than what was reported and there are gaps in the Chinese government's story of how they handled the disease. Still, because it started in China, it was probably less of a threat to the rest of the world because it was relatively easy to document all the folks who visited China during that time frame. If it had started in France or Boston or Tokyo, it could have possibly been much worse.
I tried to tell you demmitt...Follow my advice. O no... laugh at my preparations, eh...Now you wanna be like me...wanna walk and talk like me...
**** **** ****! I've been looking forward to my May Mexico vacation for MONTHS now, but this might force me to cancel it...
Jeez, a co-worker of my wife has a son on vacation in Mexico, and he is having all the flulike symptoms. I really hope he's okay. Please keep us up to date with your wife's info, Rimrocker.
From here, the caption reads: Assuming the caption is accurate, and these are not WHO officials traveling to sites of contamination to offer their services, these five people are idiots. Each of them spent a couple hundred bucks on their weeklong vacations, woke up this morning in Mexico City, and figured, "Yeah, I know everybody's getting sick, but f- it, I'm getting my money's worth. Let's go sight-seeing." Each of these people will be on a flight back to the States in a matter of days, spreading whatever unholy crap they picked up to another five clusterpoints across the nation. This picture is what argues against hope of containment, if this virus proves any kind of lasting threat. The tourists on that bus should be imprisoned for the public good. Heh. As I find myself knee-deep in backyard mud (geez I hope it's mud; don't remember hitting any pipes), the walls literally caving in around me, I do tip my hat, good sir. I admit: I was thoroughly wrong to believe in the efficacy of representative democracy, lo these many years. I am a bit chagrined that your shelter preparations were for alternative motives (second amendment rather than Spanish flu, I believe), but you will endure nonetheless. Oh, to read the history texts the survivors (those who built fallout shelters) will write, not as history's winners, but in most cases as its inadvertent survivors. It's as if Jor-El was busying himself building escape pods, not because he thought Krypton was going to explode, but because he was a dues-paying Bircher. On a more serious note, I just came back from a convenience store, where the off-duty officer was busy sneezing up his lungs, without covering his mouth. It's probably the normal B strain of regular flu that would be dying out this time of year, and I am definitely oversensitive, but something's going around Houston, if only my paranoia.
Have to be generally amused by the guy at the back of the bus that clearly has a mask around his neck, but is not wearing it to cover his nose/mouth. Granted, general consensus seems to be that the masks do not help much for this particular virus.
It's disconcerting to hear two boys in Texas got the flu and have no idea how they contracted it. Especially when it seems like the flu originated from Mexico. Reminds me of the game pandemic where the virus slowly and covertly infects people... there might be hundreds of infected in the lower parts of America already.
Yep. Reminds me of the guy who was diagnosed with thermonuclear consumption in Europe a while back, then decided to fly back to the States on a commercial airliner. In a confined cabin, with recirculating air, with other people on board. What a champ. Or like these people from the earlier pic, who might not be entirely clear on the concept behind the masks:
good news is that the incubation period is only 48 hours...if you're exposed and don't show symptoms after 48 hours, you're clean....lowers the number of ticking time bombs walking around at any one point.
Near San Antonio... _____ SCUCISD Classes Canceled Due To Swine Flu SAN ANTONIO -- The Texas Department of State Health Services on Sunday announced that all 14 schools and district facilities in the Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City Independent School District will be closed effective immediately after several more flu-like illnesses have been discovered in the department's ongoing swine flu investigation. The closure will be in effect for at least a week for 11,000 students and 1,400 district employees. All extracurricular activities also were cancelled. link
Wow....shall we say overblown or is this really that freakin serious?! OH DAMN, we are gonna all turn into zombies!
My nephew is in elementary school in that district. I'm planning on being down there this weekend, too, for a soccer tournament and bbq.
I got sick starting last Wednesday and I'm just now getting over it. Sore throat for a day, then just a really bad cough and a lot of sinus congestion. I never did get a fever though so I think I'm swine free.
The experts say they can't figure out why only people that have contracted it in Mexico are being killed. Isn't it obvious. The people down there are very poor to the point that many of them can't afford traditional health care. Last time I was down there both I and my daughter got sick. We went to the ER for my daughter and it only cost 25 bucks without any insurance. I didn't go to the ER. I simply went to the pharmacy to get a penicillin shot and paid a nurse to give it to me. That was a total of about 15 dollars. I saw that as a hell of a deal, yet my family down are normal people in Mexico. They work every day jobs like being a teacher and yet they can not even afford 15 dollars to go get a penicillin shot. This is why so many people down there are dying of this strain of flu. It is indeed lethal, but we as Americans need to chill out on the paranoia until actual Americans that have gone through our medical establishment start dying of this disease. We are in a far better situation to deal with this then Mexico.
