SARS didn't do the markets a lot of good - what about Swine Flu Epidemic

tomterm8

michaels wrote: »

Finally I am sure ther are lots of contagion models in to which it is easy to feed in the likely number of infectious individuals arriving in to the country and the likely infection rate and to already say fairly accurately 100 cases day 5, 10,000 day 10, 1m day 20 etc but this does not seem to be being communicated. If it was good news I am sure it would be mentioned?

Contageon models are a bit of a dark art, they are worse than weather forecasting. There have only been three flu pandemics in the last hundred odd years. There isn't much data to base your model on, and by definition each pandemic bug is a new quantity, which mutates during the pandemic becoming more or less transmissable.

For what it's worth, in the governments flu pandemic plan, figures reange from over 30,000 deaths to over 700,000 deaths depending on how much of the population is infected and how lethal the bug is.

amcluesent

Preliminary analysis of the swine flu virus suggests it is a fairly mild strain, scientists say.



It is believed that a further mutation would be needed in order for the H1N1 virus to cause the mass deaths that have been estimated by some.



But at this point, it is impossible to predict with any accuracy how the virus will continue to evolve.

Political Lies and Media Disinformation regarding the Swine Flu Pandemic

vivatifosi

There are a lot of posts and news stories around comparing this epidemic to the Spanish Flu pandemic of the early 1920s. As our standards of living have increased substantially since then will this at least go some way to mitigate the risk?

For example, if I look at my grandparents, all of whom were alive at the time of the last pandemic as children:

All of them lived in cramped conditions: big families, little houses. One grandparent was Romany and lived in a single room caravan. Children always shared bedrooms and often beds with as many as five people sharing a bedroom.

Generally there was not ready access to hot and cold running water and toilets were outside.

Nobody had access to antivirals to help diminish the effects.

They were poor and more likely to be malnourished, particularly those who were poor in a big town/city and couldn't grow some vegetables/poach game.

So even if the flu was as virulent as the Spanish Flu variety, which thankfully it doesn't look like presently, would we not likely be more likely to survive as a result of our living conditions? I can see that the infection could spread quicker as a result of travel, but I can't see how we could be better set to fight it otherwise.

GDB2222

We may live in larger homes, but we are still in close enough proximity. I suspect we travel more than in the 1920's. Surely, the best, most reliable way to pick this flu up is to travel on the Underground in the rush hour.

The news that this does not cause a Cytokine over-reaction like the Spanish Flu is very good news indeed.

bubblesmoney

Pig flu victim ........... had been at a packed rock concert while infected with the bug - and was ordered to keep quiet about it.

...........

And worryingly, ........(his) pal .........., who caught swine flu off him, revealed yesterday that he was among a crowd of 17,000 people at the Scottish Cup semi-final at Glasgow's Hampden Park stadium last Sunday.
.....
"If someone has the virus, the advice given to them is that there is a significant danger of passing it on.

"They shouldn't really be travelling on public transport, or be in large groups of people."

:eek::eek:

http://www.people.co.uk/news/tm_headline=pig-flu-the-cover-up%26method=full%26objectid=21328328%26siteid=93463-name_page.html

amcluesent

>and was ordered to keep quiet about it.<

Govt. seems to be playing with fire! Or do 'they' know about the genetic make-up of virus and the likely rate of transmission and severity of infection? After all, no-one has explained how the genetic sequence includes pig, bird and human flu components!

Many, many unanswered questions.

hermanmunster_3

michaels wrote: »

.

Just wondered if medical staff had been told to communicate a message of reassurance to the general public.


QUOTE]

No we haven't had any message like this (medical staff don't respond well to being told to spout the party line!!!!!!!) - we just read what is available and make our own educated interpretation - like we do all the time!

michaels

OK
So reassuring message one was the virus didn't seem to be spreading widely in the community - now it is obvious that that was just the incubation period / testing delay
Now we are being reassured that the disease is mild - however if mortality is say 0.5% then it would be pretty unlikely for there to be any deaths yet

What interests me is that there was no real attempt at containment - I wonder if that is because it was already widespread in the US as well as Mexico when the alert was raised or whether any measures would have been hopeless.

I wonder how many in the community have the virus but do not realise they could have been infected (that person who sneezed on the train last week - how were you to know they had been to Mexico?) and thus would not even bother to contact their doctor with a mild cold / 'flu?

mewbie_2

I think the reaction to this mild flu, the preparations for it, the containment of it, the meaningless political flappings - mean that when / if bird flu happens we are totally and utterly fewked.

GDB2222

I think the flu will reach epidemic proportions, in the same way that seasonal flu does, ie a large proportion of the population will be infected. The real questions are:

• The mortality rates, which mercifully seem to be not too bad.
• Whether it strikes down the infirm or the young and healthy. Fortunately (?), it seems to be the infirm. To put that in perspective, ordinary seasonal flu kills 30,000 people a year in the US, and nobody bats an eyelid.
• Whether it mutates into something more deadly.