Be Excellent To Each Other

So the WHO is really concerned that a recent flu out break in Mexico that is already in the USA and elsewhere could be a new Flu Pandemic.

It's popped up late in the flu season and it targets 20-40 year olds.

The last flu pandemic, spanish flu, in 1918 infected 1 billion people (50% of the population of the planet), and killed between 20 and 100 million. It was remarkable because it attacked the immune system, so young strong people were the most fucked by it.

Bit worrying really.

Mainly as I once spent a drunk evening with a Doctor who worked preparing people for space flights when not doing general doctoring. We were talking about bird flu and he explained that he, like most doctors he knew, were planning to quit if it happened because there would be almost nothing they could do. He also recommended not going to work and just hiding out for a month or so.

TIN FOIL MASKS AT THE READY.

Oh yeah. BBC news

Link

And wikipedia on 1918 pandemic.

link

Oh great, my old pa is off to Texas tomorrow.

That's not flu. Start the van.

Zombies at 3 o'clock.

I am no expert on these things, but a couple of things stand out from that article:
1) 60 people killed in Mexico.
Over what time period? How does this compare to any other flu outbreak in Mexico? How many people contracted the flu, was it 60, or 6 million? Did they actually die of the flu?
2)Dr Richard Besser, acting director of the Centre for Disease Control, said that preliminary tests on seven out of 14 samples from patients in Mexico had matched the virus found in the US.
Dr Richard Besser, acting director of the Centre for Disease Control, could have said that preliminary tests on seven out of 14 samples from patients in Mexico had not matched the virus found in the US.
Meaning that there is at least one other flu type affecting the people of Mexico.

I am not dismissing this, but I dislike this scaremongering tactic of disseminating half of the information.

in fact:


So 20 people have died in Mexico City official pop, 8.8 million, in a month.
900 people from 9 million have been affected, not exactly pandemic status is it?
The only potentially alarming statistic is 20 from 900 people have died, that is actually pretty high, but the BBC have completely ignored this!

It's only 60 Mexicans. Who were probably poor, and lived in a pigsty.

There was a huge, stupid panic over bird 'flu and you could only really get it by being poor, and living in a henhouse, surrounded my chickens and their excrement.

This'll be the same thing.

Good job we live on an island, eh? Time for lock-down! Fuck you, America!

No Americans have died from it. (and loads have had it).

I think it's just the crappy health care system in place in Mexico tbh.

It's 3rd world countries who will suffer from pandemics like this.

Media scaremongers shock. Press conference at six.

Have the likes of the Daily Express got hold of this yet? They do love to cause a panic, and will no doubt be saying things like, "UP TO 300 trillion people COULD die".

There's only one solution.

We have to move to Madagascar.

Heh, for some reason this thread has gotten me thinking about the 'Red man's greed' ep of south park..

"Our cure for SARS is 7up and chicken noodle soup"



"But Stanley, Daddy's very sick.. He only stands a 99.9% chance of making a full recovery"

lmao

"Potential pandemic" = "transmissible disease". ie: every single disease that ever existed.

If I'm wrong, then, well, we'll all be dead, so I don't care.

This probably isn't it.

But it will happen one day, in the next twenty or so years. Our population just can't keep expanding, and antibiotics just can't keep on being used (and thus diminishing in effectiveness) without it sooner or later happening. This case is worrying, and there is a slim outside chance it could be very serious and a pandemic indeed. But even if we dodge this bullet, sooner or later it's gonna happen. Basically I only pay pension to keep my mum off my back.

In good news, I had an awesome night dancing with cute lasses at an indie club tonight.

Well yeah, there's bound to be something to come along and fuck us up the wazoo sooner or later. People think we're invincible now because we have medicine and all that, but we're more susecptible than ever given the population density and amount of travelling we do.

Of course, there's always madagascar....

Influenza is a virus, so antibiotics have no effect on it. That doesn't really alter the essential point that a pandemic in an age full of air travel and close contact has the potential to really fuck us up, though.

This had better not mess up my American wedding in October.

*shakes fist*

Spanish flu outbreak - 2.5% death rate

SARS - 10% or so but only 8000 cases after 8 months.

Mexican Swine Flu - so far roughly 8% with 1400 cases after a couple of weeks.

DOOOOOOOOOOMED

I can put up with with those percentages. Is there any chance it only targets idiots?

Argh, great - I saw silent news in Weatherspoons with lots of people wearing masks and shots of the White House and stuff and now I feel all anxious again. Stupid anxiety, irrational or otherwise. Completely awesome Jeffrey Lewis set in Clwb Ifor Bach helped take my mind off it but yeah, great idea Weatherspoons - use your two dozen big TV sets in the pub looming over virtually every table to screen worrying News 24 footage why don't you. Twats.

But yes, Jeffrey Lewis was awesome.

And erk. Think I should avoid the news for a while.

Citation needed.

Best begin hoarding, just in case!

Who's got the [strikethrough]cat[/strikethrough] pandemic chow?

From a story on the BBC News website from a victim of the GLOBAL SWINE FLU PANDEMIC WHICH WILL WIPE OUT THE WORLD



Nooo, thats very like 'Normal' Flu. 99% of what people call 'Flu is actually just a bad cold, not Flu.

DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED!



(because this better image is too large to post, and yes, I know you can't look straight down the Thames and see Towah Blidge)

We need a BETEO survival guide!

-always carry a plastic bag filled with cans of Pepsi, for twatting infected priests
-if you are about to be raped by soldiers, take a lot of painkillers so you won't care. Until later, at least
-the best way to obtain more fuel is to go driving around in your car, looking for it
-be sure to put on a hazard suit before drinking irradiated water, this will reduce your dose of radiation somehow
-rather that filtering your water through earth and then boiling it, demolish an old memorial to build the most pointlessly complicated water purification system you can
-be sure to develop a bizarre hobby or obsession to occupy you during the long months of solitude
-abandon your house to live in a teetering shack made of scrap metal
-be sure to obtain a varied wardrobe to cope with changing conditions, ensure you have leather both with and without spikes
-there is nothing illogical using up perfectly good food to keep other people alive so you can eat them

And don't forget your can opener!

It's probably a good idea. I'm completely non-anxious about it because I haven't seen teh flu terrorz yet.

However this will probably mean I'll be oblivious to it, fail to horde correctly, and die.


Also, 2 people in Scotland catched it, apparently.

I've already started saving bottle caps

Wiki pages. There's already a massive one on this outbreak.

I ate Mexican food at the weekend and now I have a sniff and a sneeze. DOOOOMED.

Anyone else hear Today this morning, wherein it was mentioned that a Mexican doctor had emailed the WHO saying that the Mexican guvmint is grossly underreporting the number sof cases and deaths? DOOOOOMED . Although as some English doctor dude pointed out, in the US all of the cases so far have been very mild bouts of flu. Which lead him to suggest that it's might be something peculiar to sombrero-wearers that leads to fatality (I paraphrase).

I was quite surprised by the SARS rate, that's all.

Living with pigs, is probably it.

Yeah, I'm sure only poor people are affected, and they deserve it anyway.

I'm going to rewatch Survivors for tips.

Of course the comparison with Spanish 'flu is going to be bogus - yes, a lot of people died then from a similar virus, but back in 1918 we had nowhere near the same level of understanding of viruses, had much less inclination or ability to act to contain it, and had much poorer healthcare. I don't think we can expect anything like that level of deaths these days no matter what the disease is. So, I think we're going to be looking elsewhere for our apocolypse. Still, I did spend this morning considering where was going to be easiest to acquire weapons from.

Historically, this has always been the case.

When a virus jumps the species abrrier, it is often not at all effective at invading its new host, hence one needs huge exposure to viral particles become infected. Hence the cases of bird flu being in those that lived with chickens, so I would not be at all surprised it it's people that live with pigs are infected.

The difference between swine flu and our recent bird flu fun is that swine flu worked out pretty damned quickly how to be communicable person to person - bird flu never got past being animal/human.

Indeed, but I ain't losing sleep over it. Just avoiding those that might come into contact with pig farmers.

And mexicans.

So, no exactly a massive lifestyle change, then?

And Americans. And Canadians. And Scotch persons.

Maid is from Singapore, so no.

That's the reason medical types get scared, though - people can move around the world so easily and quickly now that you never quite know where, as everyone's mum (busy lady) would put it, the person next to you has been.

John Coffey and I are gonna GET YOU ALL.

There's a part of me that cynically believes this hasn't thing to do with influenza, but repatriating Mexicans from the US. Statistically, the odds are low, low, low and I'm willing to chance my arm over it. Medical types often do overreact to things like this, mostly due to ignorance.

Makes perfect sense from their point of view. Do you want to be the one who advocates doing nothing and is shown to be wrong?

Remember, push fat bastards away *before* you shoot them

Obviously not, however getting all excited over it and singing an apocolypso over it isn't the best, either. but then again, if that had not have happened, we wouldn't be having this chat.

I've gone long on Roche, though.

I agree with Kern.

But argh. Didn't get much sleep tonight - this entire thing has re-activated the anxiety core of my brain so my mind raced unreasonably on various scenarios, and despite telling myself not to be stupid and not get het-up I was, to the point of nightmares involving a black nurse taking me to one side and advising me to get off the university campus and away into the hills, because the authorities had lost control of it. I really wish this wasn't affecting my mental wellbeing so much, but I really am worried in an anxiety-obsessing despite facts way. Blub.

Shouldn't have read all those apocalyptic novels, watched Terry Nation series and the like.

One of the best bits of Judge Dredd: The Apocalypse War fact-fans.

Sorted.

I'm just geting tired of the on-going imminent apocolypses. If it's not flu, it's global warming, or peadeo-terrorism, or boy bands, or the end of the Aztec calender, or something else. I yearn for the good old days of mutually-assured destruction.

Vote for me in the next election. It'll be ace when I'm in charge. Did you get medieval total war in the end?

No, you should have! It's exciting this. Think up scenarios of how you'd escape the flu-zombie menace. By the time you're mentally prepared for it, it'll have all blown over.

You're MAD you are.