This is how the end of civilization begins

[Hambil]

link

The United States government declared a public health emergency Sunday as the number of identified cases of swine flu in the nation rose to 20.

 

[SilentBtViolent]

fo realz!!

 

[CaptainWacky]

Wow, 20.

 

[Fuddlemiff]

Lucky there's this thread or I'd never have known about it.

 

[CaptainWacky]

Remember when bird flu killed us all?

 

[Fuddlemiff]

And to think we'd only just got over the devastating millennium bug.

 

[Cassie]

DO NOT HAVE UNPROTECTED SEX WITH YOUR SWINE, IMO!

 

[curiousa2z]

6 have brought the dreaded virus up into the Dominion of Canada! bastards!



- they should have tipped those Mexican maids at the hotel IMHO!

 

[SilentBtViolent]

I do find this one actually scarier than the bird flu bit, for two reasons:

1. This afflicts healthy adults primarily
2. The geographic spread before authorities caught on

I am not saying this is the big one, but I bet the big one will share those two attributes.

 

[Hambil]

I do find this one actually scarier than the bird flu bit, for two reasons:

1. This afflicts healthy adults primarily
2. The geographic spread before authorities caught on

I am not saying this is the big one, but I bet the big one will share those two attributes.

I'll add 2 more:

3. It passes human to human, which is very rare for this type of flu and increases mutation rates.
4. It's a type that we don't have natural immunity built up for.

 

[Blindgroping]

HEY!!! I just got over the flu!

And STILL have snot and coughing!!


Who wants to come over for dinner?

 

[Fuddlemiff]

It's reached Scotland, watch out Wacky!

 

[chucklemeister]

Captain Trips is on it's way.

 

[Eggs Mayonnaise]

On the slightly bright side, all the NYC cases are confined to one Catholic school in Queens, and those infected seem to be in recovery instead of dying.

But who knows?

 

[Hambil]

Well, as stated by SBV, this may not be the BIG ONE, but it is how the BIG ONE will look at the start.

 

[CaptainWacky]

I don't leave the house so the "human to human" thing isn't a concern.

 

[Hambil]

link

The World Health Organization has raised its pandemic alert level in response to the outbreak of swine flu that originated in Mexico, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Monday.

The move from level three to level four on the WHO's six-level threat scale means the world body has determined the virus is capable of significant human-to-human transmission -- a major step toward a flu pandemic, said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, the agency's assistant director-general.

A pandemic is not considered "inevitable," Fukuda said. But Napolitano said the move "does indicate that we have a serious outbreak of swine flu on our hands."

...

"Sadly, 149 people have died, of which we are working to confirm if they are linked to the swine flu," Mexico Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova Villalobos said. "The number of cases, unfortunately, will continue to increase."

So far, 26 cases have been confirmed by laboratory tests in Mexico and reported to the World Health Organization. Nearly 2,000 people have been hospitalized and 776 remain in hospitals, Cordova said.

Starting to get less funny quickly.

 

[CaptainWacky]

LOL!!!!

 

[SilentBtViolent]

Right now I'm watching Charlie Rose. The gist of what these people are suggesting is that maybe the U.S. fatality rate is close to correct, and it's in the 1 to 2 percent mortality rate (meaning 98 to 99 percent of people who get sick don't die).

If that's right then we're FUCKED b/c it'd mean that thousands upon thousands of Mexican folks have been infected already and it's way way way more widespread than thought.

The 1918 to 1920 flu killed 25,000,000 people. More WWI soldiers died of flu than from the fighting... Its mortality rate was less than 2%.

I'm still not "calling" this as something that is going to ruin life as we know it, but analytically speaking it's certainly the scariest public health event in my lifetime (and I have a close friend who died of AIDS in the 80s).

 

[Cassie]

It's god's way of thinning the herd.