Swine 'flu - What economic impact?

Masomnia wrote: »

I don't know if I'd have the vaccine anyway.

If supplies are going to be limited I'd rather someone else have it, since I'm totally healthy/healthy lifestyle, than take chances with any side-effects. Think I'll chance the flu.

The vaccine won't be for the entire population. It will be for front line staff and those with serious under lying problems. There is absolutely no chance they will give it to everyone, not when the flu is so mild with such a low death rate.

What the government has done is compared the potential cost of a huge proportion of front line staff taking 2 weeks off due to the illness, against the cost of purchasing and administrating the vaccine. It must be cheaper to vaccinate a few million people than pay millions for 2 weeks off sick, and lose tax revenue over this time.

its understandable that people are so worried. i myself am worried too especially as my two year old son has severe asthma. i have asthma too but im much more worried about my baby.
also there is a confirmed case of swine flu in my older sons school. his history teacher has it and lots of children have been sent home today feeling unwell.im just glad that today was the last day of school and that its now the summer holidays.
my son didnt go into school today because his little brother developed chicken pox and he has lots of spots all over. i had several texts off people i know this afternoon because there is a rumour that my son was off because he has got swine flu. i kept him off because im not sure if he has had chicken pox as when he was little he did have some spots during a local outbreak but he had so few spots i cant be sure he has had them.. it really does go to show how paranoid people are becoming.
one thing i would like to point out though is during the spanish flu outbreak peoples awarenes of hygiene was no where near as good as it is these days neither did they have the fantastic cleaning products that we have today. some families back then couldnt even afford basic soap. they didnt have washing machines either which could have helped carry the virus on clothes.
plus back then very few people had any first aid training or knowledge on caring for the sick and i presume there where no fever reducing medications like there is today or steroids and inhalors.
in fact overall the health care back then was very poor and little information on how to avoid and treat these conditions. oh and lets not forget they didnt have antibiotics back then either to treat any chest infections. or anit virals.
now i know that a lot of people will die from the swine flu sweeping through the world right now. but if you take these things into concideration then it makes sense that there will be far fewer deaths than there was with spanish flu.
i hope these points i have made will help to put some peoples minds at rest.i am not medically trained in any way its just things that i have thought about.

vivatifosi wrote: »

Did my first run as a "flu buddy" this morning. The system worked really well. I went to a relative's doctor for her and picked up her prescription. She'd called up in advance, the doctor had already been through her notes and identified her as in an at risk category (asthma), no wait, got the prescription straight away. They told me where the nominated pharmacy was, went there, got the Tamiflu really easily and there was no charge. The prescriptions look different to the normal ones, so they knew what I was coming in for before I even got to the counter. Very quick, very efficient and because I was able to put them on rel's doorstep with some basic food provisions nobody got exposed to swine-flu that didn't have to. I was pretty impressed by what the NHS had put together. Why people are still visiting doctors with symptoms is beyond me.

and what about people who are unemplyed and live on their own and dont have friends or family, or are alone and elderly? who does this for them?