Re: The H1N1 influenza

by **more adventurous.** Fri 01 May 2009, 8:41 am

I don't think she meant to offend you Mikey.
Now that you've clarified, I see what you mean.

But I can see how she misinterpreted what you were saying.

by Who we are. Fri 01 May 2009, 9:05 am

I didnt mean that as an attack or anything and i understand what you are saying about its just a matter of population density and money.
Its just the way you explained it before.
Like Start the Engines said before " Just because it isn't your area doesn't mean it isn't a big deal."
Think off all the people who live on those contries were population is very dense, poor hygine and cant afford mediacal attention, someone needs to help them.

by **LADIES AND GENTLEMEN** Fri 01 May 2009, 10:00 am

Well yes, but that wasn't what I was referring to. I was talking about the mass panic such outbreaks have caused in the past. Of course somebody needs to help them, but somebody needs to help the mothers in China who are being forced to have abortions or hystorectomies and the children in Africa whose parents are dying of AIDS. But that isn't what we're talking about, here.

by **she had the world.** Fri 01 May 2009, 10:44 am

My parents told me about the Swine Flu last night, since I've been on the road for the past 4 days. One thing I remembered my Dad saying was "150,000 people die from the flu every year; so what is 20,000 more?" And I know that sounds harsh, but when you put it into perspective more people are dying from the normal flu strains every year. Everyone was hyped up and scared about the Avian Flu in 2006, but have you heard anything since?

Yeah the Media does hype things up, but you can also look at the precautions the world is taking to try and prevent it as much as possible. They haven't closed any of the international gateways into countries, and only some countries have set up machines at their major airports to detect for flu symptoms.

Knowing the Media, they've made it seem 10x worse than what it really is. The number of cases may be high, but the amount of deaths is not that big when you take into consideration that there is 8 billion people living in this world. Millions of people are living in the places that have had outbreaks, and really the number of cases is quite small in comparison. If it was hugely serious, the number of cases and deaths would be a lot higher.

Just be careful and wash your hands, use sanitizer, eat heathly because that boosts your immune system. The better you take care of yourself, the less likely you are of even getting sick.

And I'm not saying that it's not bad, and it's not a problem- I'm just saying that you shouldn't get worked up over it.

by Jack Skellington Fri 01 May 2009, 6:21 pm

^Thank you Chels.

It just annoys me how the one person in the US has died, it was a 23-MONTH-old baby that just got back from Mexico.

>:[

Everything is 10x worse when the media gets involved.

And Jenna, I'll stay hopeful for your grandmother.

by **gloria-** Sat 02 May 2009, 12:35 am

Jack Sparrow wrote:It just annoys me how the one person in the US has died, it was a 23-MONTH-old baby that just got back from Mexico.

just to clarify, actually, the baby was mexican and was across the border for a medical procedure he (she? i'm not totally sure) couldn't get in mexico, something completely unrelated to the swine flu.

also, i heard that it didn't actually come from pigs...pork farmers are pissed because no one's buying their products when in reality it's closer to a strain of avian flu.

-shrug- the avian flu is strain h1n5, and this strain is h1n1.

at least, that's what i heard.

by **gloria-** Sat 02 May 2009, 2:28 am

new update (at least, off the white house's facebook page):

the strain is now being called the h1n1 flu - not swine flu.

so my post up there ^ was wrong, but i'm going to fix it now.

by Jack Skellington Sat 02 May 2009, 4:38 am

Orlly? I heard different. whatnow? O_O

sorry bout that.

Still, my point being, the one death in the US was a BABY who is obviously more susceptible to illness (like swine flu) than a healthy adult.

by bittersweet. Sat 02 May 2009, 5:25 am

eulogyXIII- wrote:also, i heard that it didn't actually come from pigs...pork farmers are pissed because no one's buying their products when in reality it's closer to a strain of avian flu.

-shrug- the avian flu is strain h1n5, and this strain is h1n1.

at least, that's what i heard.

I heard that the virus was involved with pigs, birds and humans...but there was the influenza and the bird flu so then it just became the swine flu. whatnow? O_O

I'm not entirely sure about that.

What Chels said was right, though. A lot of common sense can prevent it, and the disease itself really isn't all that bad.

by **gloria-** Sat 02 May 2009, 5:30 am

bittersweet. wrote:
eulogyXIII- wrote:also, i heard that it didn't actually come from pigs...pork farmers are pissed because no one's buying their products when in reality it's closer to a strain of avian flu.

-shrug- the avian flu is strain h1n5, and this strain is h1n1.

at least, that's what i heard.

I heard that the virus was involved with pigs, birds and humans...but there was the influenza and the bird flu so then it just became the swine flu. I'm not entirely sure about that.

yes, it's a combination of the three, but most (if not all, at this point) of the pork you buy in the stores is not going to give you swine flu. at this point, it will be caught from another human...

another interesting point - my mom thinks she's already had it. there was this nasty cold/flu thing going around a couple weeks ago, here, which felt like the flu (apparently, i haven't had it yet) but you didn't throw up. my entire family has had it except me, so i'm probably next...i'll let you folks know if i get swine flu. you have pleased him

by **she had the world.** Sat 02 May 2009, 9:23 am

^ That makes sense. I was reading about it last night and it said that a lot of people who contract this new strain of influenza recover without any medical help at all. So it just shows you that it isn't deadly and you can even recover from it. Majorty of people make a full recovery.

Apparently it's a mutated strain of Avian Flu, Swine Flu and Human Influenza. But there has also been outbreaks of Swine flu before, and when you think about the people who have died in Mexico- their living conditions are poor compared to Western countries, and their Health Care systems are very poor. So in a cruel way, it does make sense as to why more people are likely to die from the disease when their living conditions are worse.

by blue. Sat 02 May 2009, 1:16 pm

Yeah, chels has got it right. I think that's why people are so freaked out. all of these strains of flu have bonded together, mutated, and created a whole new type of flu that we currently have no vaccine for and no adapted immunity. that's just a scary thought in itself, that these illness are breeding (probably not the right word to use, but hey) and creating new. if the flu can do it, what other illnesses are going to do it next, right?

I'm in chicagoland area, and a BUNCH of schools have closed down in my town. we have like 219102817 schools and literally at least 1/3 are closed.

some kid was selling those surgical masks on friday lol@chu

he got in major trouble but srsly, that's a great scam. he made a bunch of money before the Dean and vice principle caught up with him.

by **LADIES AND GENTLEMEN** Sat 02 May 2009, 4:29 pm

While I agree, what people don't realise is that the normal flu virus mutates every year, often more than once. When a nasty one is 'going around', it's not that it's just been chillin' there in someone's used tissue for a few months, it's just that the disease has mutated again. So even though mutations sound scary, it's not that big of a deal. All kinds of infections mutate - thats how we can have so many variations of the common cold.

I think also people often mistake serious colds or other conditions, like bronchitis, for the flu. Flu is short for influenza, which is a really, really nasty disease most of the time. So we've gotten it into our heads that getting the flu means a week or two off work/school, some coughing and maybe some throwing up/fever, when really, we're talking about a disease that's potentially deadly.

I mean, I do understand that it's a bad thing, but as chels said - and my mum said today, have our parents been convening? whatnow? O_O

- the regular 'flu' kills a couple of hundred thousand people every year.

In my opinion, we're more afraid of this than we should be for a few reasons.
One: we don't realize that the normal flu is potentially just as deadly
Two: it's a new disease that we have no cure for (and because it's new AND has no cure, we forget that there's hundreds of other diseases out there just as deadly with just as little chance of being cured/treated)
Three: the media is making it out to be a million times worse than it probably is.

I mean, people have made reference to the 1918 spanish flu outbreak, but we forget that things were painfully primative back then.

Sure, we don't have a cure treatment (yet) but we have quarantine and isolation facilities as well a whole host of drugs and medical equipment that wasn't even around back then, let alone available to large sectors of the general public.

I've been going off the CDC's website, but wikipedia has an article and a diagram on how it can happen.

Oh and on the lighter side of things - a computer programmer took the DNA profile of swine flu, ran it through some mathemetics and then put it into a program that generates music, and came out with a swine flu themesong! You can read about it here.

by **LADIES AND GENTLEMEN** Sat 02 May 2009, 4:36 pm

Also, another post for this because EVERYONE SHOULD READ IT:

if you haven't got your regular flu vaccinations, DO SO. I just got mine today (and my tetanus shot; OW UGH MY LIFE) and the doctor said that while it doesn't protect against swine flu, it should protect you fine against the regular flu - that way, if you get any symptoms, you can go straight to the hospital to confirm, and not waste time.

by drackie. Sat 02 May 2009, 5:58 pm

The media blows things up bigger than they should and people see this, then they blow this thing way too far out of proportion, I mean when AIDS first became big people were being arrested just for contracting HIV.

Whose to say it wont come here to Perth? But the likely hood of someone catching it is quite slim.
And I know that you've had the regular flu Nicole. You survived that so you deffinately survive this.
Theres really no difference.

People should realize that a flu is a flu. If you get it, you get it. But if you do feel fluish get check and you'll be fine.
There is really no reason to worry about this.

And there is deffinately no reason for this to be so big.
I mean I suffer from asthma and more people die of asthma attacks every year than the flu.
And that isn't on the news?

This is only on the news because its new. No other reason.

by **she had the world.** Sat 02 May 2009, 9:58 pm

Like Mikey said, the flu does mutate all the time. Which is why doctors are costantly telling people they should get annual flu shots, etc.

I did some research last night and the number of deaths is no where near the amount of the 1918 Spanish Influenza, but I don't even think it will come close. Mainly because medicine has advanced a lot since then, and health care is higher quality and easily accessible for more people. That's close to 100 years of medicine research since the last majore pandemic.

I really don't think anyone should worry. Sure, it's scary to know it's out there. But you probably have more chance of dying from walking out onto the road and being hit by a car than you would from this new strain of flu.

by Adrisole Q. Kazoo Sat 02 May 2009, 10:24 pm

I heard on the news yesterday, or rather my mom did, that it's not as bad as the media portayed it. whatnow? O_O

by LightningRod Sun 03 May 2009, 12:28 am

Oh nowhere near Jenna.
Like everyone else has said, it's just another strain of the flu virus that affected mostly pigs and has now mutated.

the media has indeed blown this way out of proportion and now there's this unecessary panic. I mean from what I've heard [which is not to be fair the most recent news] there has only been one case confirmed that the person has not been in Mexico or had contact with anyone from there :/

Everyone saying this is all deadly and it's going to kill you straight away. -sigh- they're forgetting that the normal influenza virus can also kill people as well .__.

by **LADIES AND GENTLEMEN** Sun 03 May 2009, 5:37 pm

Adrisole Q. Kazoo wrote:I heard on the news yesterday, or rather my mom did, that it's not as bad as the media portayed it.

Lol, you heard from the media that it's not as bad as the media said it was?

by extraordinary machine. Sun 03 May 2009, 7:31 pm

the missing piece. wrote:
Adrisole Q. Kazoo wrote:I heard on the news yesterday, or rather my mom did, that it's not as bad as the media portayed it.
Lol, you heard from the media that it's not as bad as the media said it was?

LOL IRONY. (':

It's bad in Mexico, only because they have really poor health care. If they had less people, and better health care, I'm sure the outcome of this influenza wouldn't have been so tragic. Its really sad though, because innocent people are dying. They say there is like, 42 people dead in Mexico, or something crazy like that, although I'm not completely sure of the actual number.

It is a pandemic in Mexico, although I wouldn't worry about it in other spots in the world (unless the country doesn't check out their tourists who visited Mexico at the time that the influenza broke out).

by rolo Sun 03 May 2009, 8:01 pm

honestly, I don't really think the media did anything wrong. whatnow? O_O

all they did really was inform us about how fast the flu was going and giving us ways to prevent it; people just took it too seriously because people have died from it.

by **LADIES AND GENTLEMEN** Sun 03 May 2009, 9:32 pm

loveless. wrote:honestly, I don't really think the media did anything wrong.
all they did really was inform us about how fast the flu was going and giving us ways to prevent it; people just took it too seriously because people have died from it.

It's not that the media outright lied, just that we didn't get the full story. Omission is betrayal is a phrase that comes to mind.

It's just as bad - in my eyes - to manipulate completely true facts to serve your purpose, as it is to outright lie.

media is a tool thats used to control the masses. it's a fact. -shrug-

by Jack Skellington Sun 03 May 2009, 10:07 pm

loveless. wrote:honestly, I don't really think the media did anything wrong.
all they did really was inform us about how fast the flu was going and giving us ways to prevent it; people just took it too seriously because people have died from it.

Linzy- you are right that people took it WAY too seriously. But you also have to look at the fact that the media is being all bi-polar by saying that IT'S A PANDEMIC RUN but then saying DON'T PANIC.

People just need to not panic and the media needs to not tell everyone that it's the worst thing since SARS. Rolling Eyes

by extraordinary machine. Mon 04 May 2009, 1:47 am

^ SARS was pretty bad though, considering it was in a developed country, and health officials still had a hard time keeping the virus under control because it spread in a city where people are always around. The death total would have been way worse if it was in a developing country.

That's the reason why the swine flu has been so scary for so many people, especially the families in Mexico. That part of the country has a very high population, and since the virus is extremely contagious, its worrisome. Not to mention the health care lacks in their country so it is hard to keep up with all of the new cases being discovered everyday and affording to keep their sickness from getting worse.

The media may be trying to scare other people in different countries, but you have to be aware and sympathetic to those who are being affected by this horrid sickness. Being cautious isn't bad, but to the degree that the media wants us to go to is ridiculous.

I mean, look at me: I live one city away from Toronto and SARS didn't affect me, or anyone I knew.
It depends on your circumstance and your level of awareness of the sickness. All you need to do is be aware. Also, wash your hands and cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze.

Do that, and you'll be completely fine.

by Jack Skellington Mon 04 May 2009, 2:03 am

Exactly- so I don't really know why people are having a massive panic attack about it- just be careful about keeping your hands clean and don't cough/sneeze on other people.

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