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Is it good? Is it bad? Is it average? Your thoughts here.

It be biological warfare! I blame New Zealand.

It's a conspiracy!

On a more serious note, swine flu may be the first viral outbreak for which we have effective treatments (Tamiflu, Arbidol, etc), and it'll be interesting to see how that works out. Or it could just be the next SARS, a media scare for no good reason.

Pretty god-awful, if you ask me. The bird flu had pretty decent hype, but now it's just getting old. What's next? Sheep flu?

One person has died in the United States, and it's all over the news. More people have died of accidental use of dental instruments while flying on a nuclear missile than this so called pandemic.

The panic is not due to what has happened, but what has a (relatively) high probability of happening. The fact that we have treatment for the virus gives me hope, but I fear for countries that can't afford the treatment or don't have an organised enough health system to deal with it.

Blackson wrote:One person has died in the United States, and it's all over the news. More people have died of accidental use of dental instruments while flying on a nuclear missile than this so called pandemic.

Technically, the guy was visiting from Mexico, so there haven't really been any deaths in terms of US citizens. The reason people are dying in Mexico is because many people there don't have good medical coverage. Basically if you stay clean and avoid Mexico, you'll be fine. We have treatment, and for the moment it isn't incredibly awful, unless you live in Mexico.

Well, on the bright side, all the people stockpiling the medication just -may- stimulate our economy!

Tsukatu wrote:Pretty god-awful, if you ask me. The bird flu had pretty decent hype, but now it's just getting old. What's next? Sheep flu?

Duck flu.

With all these medicines now, I don't think it would be even 1‰ as bad as the Spanish Flu.

Yes, I too am worried about the people in the undeveloped world, including my family in Africa :(

Ebola, bird flu, SARS, terrorism, nuclear bombs, global warming, swine flu, aliens, financial crisis, every god damn month some new shit that always someone gets profit from... These or similar news should just be supplanted from every part of our brains.

EDIT: There you go :-)

Our population was becoming too big for its boots anyway.

I'm out of school until monday because of the swine flu. A couple of kids in my area got it. I live in Alabama, by the way.

It's a great idea, maestro! Sure to kickstart a boring century!

O_O

Seriously, I'm pretty fearful about this. I've actually made a bet with my schoolfriends about who's going to contract it first :S I could hope that this wasn't going to happen, but that'd be naive.

i think it's all hogwash. it's just like bird flu. bird flu was around, killed a few (maybe, i never pay attention to these things anyway), and then left. bah, swine flu is just another passing fad. besides, we need a good bout of death to wipe out most of the race.

yungerkid wrote:i think it's all hogwash. it's just like bird flu. bird flu was around, killed a few (maybe, i never pay attention to these things anyway), and then left. bah, swine flu is just another passing fad. besides, we need a good bout of death to wipe out most of the race.

yeah, but swine flu has killed over 150 people now. and it's more dangerous than bird flu for several reasons. and it's not as contained as bird flu.

Egypt killed 300,000 of its own pigs according to CNN.

Fail. (Swine flu isn't contracted from pigs)

Tsukatu wrote:Pretty god-awful, if you ask me. The bird flu had pretty decent hype, but now it's just getting old. What's next? Sheep flu?

I'm still waiting on West Nile Virus to hit Oregon.

Techno wrote:Egypt killed 300,000 of its own pigs according to CNN.

Fail. (Swine flu isn't contracted from pigs)

Morons. Poor pigs.
I've read that this disease will probably get renamed to "novel" (new virus), since because of this name swine meat sale fell down drastically.

EdoI wrote:

Techno wrote:Egypt killed 300,000 of its own pigs according to CNN.
Fail. (Swine flu isn't contracted from pigs)

Morons. Poor pigs.

Poor pigs? You realize they were probably going to be slaughtered within a year or two for bacon anyway, right? Either way, they're being murdered, so there's no difference.
They probably threw the meat away, though. Poor ham.

Tsukatu wrote:

EdoI wrote:

Techno wrote:Egypt killed 300,000 of its own pigs according to CNN.
Fail. (Swine flu isn't contracted from pigs)

Morons. Poor pigs.

Poor pigs? You realize they were probably going to be slaughtered within a year or two for bacon anyway, right? Either way, they're being murdered, so there's no difference.
They probably threw the meat away, though. Poor ham.

Off topic. Sooo off topic.

Anyway, here in Texas we may get some school off--it seems weird, deja, that you get school off and we haven't yet when we're closer to Mexico and the one death in the States was here. The main reason I'm not worried is our health care is vastly superior to Mexico's; also they tend to wait a long time before going to a doctor there, and we have been forewarned.

Well I don't think it will be that bad. Sure it may infect people fast but thats all it's really got going for it. We have anti-virals and there making a vaccination. So this whole thing should be over with after a short while.

flagmyidol wrote:it seems weird, deja, that you get school off and we haven't yet when we're closer to Mexico and the one death in the States was here.

Say this sentence again?

flagmyidol wrote:The main reason I'm not worried is our health care is vastly superior to Mexico's; also they tend to wait a long time before going to a doctor there

Dude, have you -ever- visited an ER in SoCal? Waiting lists FTL.

It could be worse. It could be the Black Plague. O_o lucky its not.

GTM wrote:Seriously, I'm pretty fearful about this. I've actually made a bet with my schoolfriends about who's going to contract it first :S I could hope that this wasn't going to happen, but that'd be naive.

Yeah... I remember that. Scaremongering git.


I personally think this is mainly hype. I mean, come on. How many people have died outside of Mexico?

One. The man that Blackson was talking about. Wasn't he over 60, as well? (which would mean he would have been more suseptable to the virus).

I'm not sure on the age. If someone could confirm that...


Anywho, the reason I believe there's been so many deaths out in Mexico is health care. Compared to other countries, i.e the US, most countries of Europe, etc, Mexico's health care is pretty bad. And I believe that I heard over the news that the main cause of death was not nessecarily the virus itself, but dehydration (which yes, is caused by the virus, but it's also pretty hot out there).

In fact, as quoted from the knower of all things, Wikipedia: "By late April, however, some virologists believed that this strain was unlikely to cause as many fatalities as earlier pandemics, and may not even be as damaging as a typical flu season."

The next few days are the ones to watch, however. This is the point critical to the virus; either it'll reach it's peak and die off... or become a full-scale pandemic. I doubt the latter will actually happen.

And as said earlier, with SARS, where there's a scare, there's money to be made. The Media will squeeze every little drop out of the story.

And with all the medication available...