Swine 'flu - What economic impact?

Heyman_2

bluey890 wrote: »

Some peoples family members are dying from it. Please show some (sincere) respect.

Please do not wilfully misinterpret my comments as ridiculing the potential destruction, grief and pain that a loved one's death from ANY variant of Flu can cause. Obviously I am a human being and wouldn't wish this on anyone.

My beef is with the usual suspects on this thread who are practically salivating at the prospect of a flu epidemic, just as they cheer on future economic disaster. :mad:

polophonic

amcluesent wrote: »

The number of people in the UK who are thought to have died after contracting swine flu has doubled in the past three days to 15 - with dozens more critically ill.

This is going to be bad, very bad...

It may be bad, but then it may always be bad. Every year 'regular seasonal' flu kills 250,000-500,000 people worldwide. The 1950s and 1960s flu pandemics had a mortality rate of less than 0.1%. The 1918 flu pandemic was the big killer. A mortality rate over 2.5% and 20 - 100 million deaths.

Such pandemics are inevitable. Swine flu (H1N1) may mutate into something much more deadly. Or a form of avian flu might (e.g H5N1).

This could happen at any time. The current mortality rates of flu gives no indication that this is actually happening now. So while it may be rational to worry about these things, it doesn't seem rational to be overly worried about swine flu.

PasturesNew

I won't get it. I never get anything.

dandy-candy

Masomnia wrote: »

Tens of thousands of people have it, that means hundreds of thousands who will be immune by Winter

Actually if it mutated to become more deadly (like the 1918 strain) then even if you did catch it first time around you wouldn't have immunity to it in it's mutated form.

julieq

Is this more or less dangerous than mad cow disease, ebola or the y2k bug? Will the asteroid strike first?

I think we should be told. Though frankly there's more chance of giggling oneself to death at how the usual doommongers are overegging this than of the illness itself. Even Ron Weasley had it and managed to get to a film premiere.

There's an interesting subject in here somewhere, which is about the tendency of people to invent apocalpytic scenarios. But I suspect we'll be squabbling about relative mortality rates of various forms of death and will miss that opportunity

Masomnia

dandy-candy wrote: »

Actually if it mutated to become more deadly (like the 1918 strain) then even if you did catch it first time around you wouldn't have immunity to it in it's mutated form.

If

I take your point though, and like I said, if something changes then I'll think again about whether I'll worry or not. As yet, the virus has a mortality rate no higher than normal, seasonal flu.

michaels

So the consensus seems to be the disease itself will not be the issue - so what sbout the economic impact of either time of work or panic?

amcluesent

>so what sbout the economic impact of either time of work<

Well the ladies will all be off due to 'child care' issues, leaving the blokes to cover for their work and keep the company a going concern. So no change at all really...:think:

julieq

Well, judging by this board, a large percentage of men spend their working days talking cr ap on the internet, so to be honest most of them could die and it wouldn't make a whole lot of difference.

vivatifosi

amcluesent wrote: »

>so what sbout the economic impact of either time of work<

Well the ladies will all be off due to 'child care' issues, leaving the blokes to cover for their work and keep the company a going concern. So no change at all really...:think:

Not me. No kids and being female I'm immune to man flu.