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Potential Economic Consequences of swine flu
michaels
Posts: 29,775
Forumite
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/world_news_america/8033022.stm
(The BBC seems to think it is on topic)
The WHO is soon to raise the pandemic to its highest classification so they certainly think it is the real deal so what will be the impact on the economy?
Findings from the US show that as well as threatening those with compromised immune systems healthy young people and sadly pregnant women are also in a small proportion at grave risk - children and elderly people less so.
Given that the symptoms are of a typical flu it is likely that the flu is already widespread in the community and unlikely to be contained (20x more than reported cases estimated in USA). Summer (if we get one this year...) is a poor time for flu to spread but it will still be in the population come autumn/winter and that is the time when any epidemic is likely.
So what will be the economic effect - we are talking people of work ill, people off work to care for others, potential shut down of events like football, cinema etc, severe strain on health services plus of course potential panic buying of fuel and long life foodstuffs. Supermarket delivery may be a winner along with drugs companies but others are likely to be bigger losers. How about housing - I would have thought no one would think about moving house in such circumstances. Similarly who would want to fly with potentially a couple of hundred disease carriers if it could be avoided.
Personally I would like me and my family to get the virus right now while there is still plenty of health capacity to support us if we are unlucky enouh to be one of the serrious cases. I wonder if the authorities should be doing something similar with health professionals to ensure that when the pandemic hits NHS staff have already had the virus and are safe....
(The BBC seems to think it is on topic)
The WHO is soon to raise the pandemic to its highest classification so they certainly think it is the real deal so what will be the impact on the economy?
Findings from the US show that as well as threatening those with compromised immune systems healthy young people and sadly pregnant women are also in a small proportion at grave risk - children and elderly people less so.
Given that the symptoms are of a typical flu it is likely that the flu is already widespread in the community and unlikely to be contained (20x more than reported cases estimated in USA). Summer (if we get one this year...) is a poor time for flu to spread but it will still be in the population come autumn/winter and that is the time when any epidemic is likely.
So what will be the economic effect - we are talking people of work ill, people off work to care for others, potential shut down of events like football, cinema etc, severe strain on health services plus of course potential panic buying of fuel and long life foodstuffs. Supermarket delivery may be a winner along with drugs companies but others are likely to be bigger losers. How about housing - I would have thought no one would think about moving house in such circumstances. Similarly who would want to fly with potentially a couple of hundred disease carriers if it could be avoided.
Personally I would like me and my family to get the virus right now while there is still plenty of health capacity to support us if we are unlucky enouh to be one of the serrious cases. I wonder if the authorities should be doing something similar with health professionals to ensure that when the pandemic hits NHS staff have already had the virus and are safe....
I think....
0
Comments
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No consequences unless the death rate increases dramatically apart from the share price increases to manufacturers of Tamiflu...Not Again0
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1984ReturnsForReal wrote: »No consequences unless the death rate increases dramatically apart from the share price increases to manufacturers of Tamiflu...
Agree I think more people have had it and got over it and never been to the doctors than we think.
540+ confirmed cases and not one death yet, even with people having underlying health problems,.0 -
Buy Dignity plc0
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Ok - hospitalisation rate in Scotland is 6% of reported infection rate so if one third of UK population get this then we are looking at 1.25m people to be hospitalised - assume 2 weeks in-patient treatment per person and say 4 months for the epidemic to pass means 150k people needing hospitalisation at any one time - anyone know how many NHS beds there are?I think....0
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Not enough, I would assume they would role out the biological and chemical response plan, which involves setting up a series of emergency field hospitals in schools and village halls accross the country.“The ideas of debtor and creditor as to what constitutes a good time never coincide.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, Love Among the Chickens0 -
Think about the economic impact of normal flu every year, and then divide that by about 100, to represent the fact that hardly anyone has got swine flu, and only a tiny proportion of those that have it actually get properly ill.
Can't believe they've bothered to declare this a pandemic - surely they will have to do the same every time a particular cold virus spreads around the world now.0 -
Swine flu seems to be back (state of emergency declared in US, cases up 50% each week in UK and hospitalisation/ICU rates double what they were in the summer and 128 dead already, many of them fit and healthy young people with no underlying health problems) and this is with a mild autumn and way ahead of the normal flu season.
Looks like the whole plan of the early summer media 'panic' was so that everyone assumed that swine flu wasn't that serious to prevent panic when things really start getting bad over the next few months. I don't believe it can work for long though, once infection and morbidity rates become too high and hospitals start implementing emergency ICU plans the story will force its way back in to the public conscious...expect things to go very quiet on the house buying and all other economic fronts.
Still various media coordinators have now been put in place so expect to see a rebuttal posted fairly soon...I think....0 -
Looks like the swine flu epidemic failed to materialise. Bet those folks over on swineflucrash are mortified.
:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:
Ha ha ha. See how I laugh at how their predictions were different from mine and how they are now wrong.
Hahaha!!!! :rotfl::rotfl:0 -
lol Mr Fishbulb.
Fwiw DH didn't take the flu jab at work this autumn: he has bn aked to ''rectify this''. He avoids it because he tends to react quite strongly to the jab, but is off to have it this week.0 -
Swine flu seems to be back (state of emergency declared in US,
Hm, given the vacine is starting to be delivered in the next few days, I think it won't be as bad as you fear. However, goven the amount of it in my area, I fully expect to have it before I get a vacine.“The ideas of debtor and creditor as to what constitutes a good time never coincide.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, Love Among the Chickens0
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