[Xenterex]

well I can semi understand some of the over caution applied to the potential for an outbreak. Back when I lived in Vegas, I had the opportunity to take part in various community assemblies designed to gear people up for emergency preparations, like massive natural disasters, biological warfare, and the like.

We you have the potential for a pandemic in a nation that

Quote:

...is the number one destination for foreign tourists within the Latin America region, ranking worldwide in the eighth place in terms of the international tourist arrivals, with 21.4 million visitors in 2006.

taken from wiki.
is slightly understandable it would get some coverage. Though I think overall that people more afraid of the spreading of the disease more so than they are the potential is has for death. Something like, 'Millions of americans take massive day-offs, slumping the economy back because the every one is home sick with the flu' maybe

[Psudo]

The caution should be in proportion to the risk. 8 people have died in the three big nations of North America combined. Risking more deaths than that via vaccination complications is neither reasonable nor acceptable.

In an effort to approximate the risk of vaccination, we could assume any potential vaccination would have the same risk factors as the '76 vaccination (25 deaths in 40 million doses). Mathematically, the risk of 12.8 million vaccinations is equal to the known risk of the current strain. 12.8 million doses spread across the 440 million people of Mexico, Canada, and the USA comes to about 1 dose for every 35 people (3% of people). Since the cases are predominantly in Mexico, the vaccinations should be also. Perhaps 8 million in Mexico, 4.5 million in the USA, and 300,000 in Canada. Something like that.

That's approximately where I draw the line for this. Significantly more attention than that is not reasonably defensible, and significantly less may easily be sufficient.

[TattoodGirl]

DerbyX wrote:

as shown, 1918.

Ya that mofo of a pig flu canceled the fucking Stanley Cup finals...fucking aporkalypse.

**a disclaimer...the only way I learn history is through hockey

[TattoodGirl]

Proculation wrote:

maybe we should inoculate everyone and let Darwin decide.

Screw that I will take my chances with the zombies...I have a plan

[ShepherdsDog]

This sounds like the bird flu scare('97/'98) all over. People were making dire predictions about it skipping species and killing millions. What happened...SFA. I'll listen to the doctors/virologists, who really know what they're talking about.

[Proculation]

TattoodGirl wrote:

DerbyX wrote:

as shown, 1918.

Ya that mofo of a pig flu canceled the fucking Stanley Cup finals...fucking aporkalypse.

**a disclaimer...the only way I learn history is through hockey

Was it Georges Vézina who died from the Spanish flu ?

[llama66]

Georges Vézina died of Tuberculosis, Canadiens defencemen Joe Hall died of 1918 Influenza. I do think things have been overblown by the media, we shall see if this is going to be as horrific as its been made out to be. its interesting that its been more serious in Mexico, but mild everywhere else, mind you we shall see if H1N1 mutates in the southern flu season and returns as a flu that could be as deadly as the 1918 influenza.

[raydan]

DerbyX wrote:

While the media is making a big deal of this lets understand a few things. Like SARS, this virus gets special mention for a few very good reasons. Unlike regular influenza it can kill healthy people and that is a very big deal. Sure lots more people die of regular flu by they are usually immunocompromised.

The other factor is that it is a actively mutating virus that can jump species. The potential harm is great.

Part of my job is identifying bacteria and viruses and their specific strain then conducting tests to determine effective treatment.

When should we be concerned? When the death toll hits 1 million? The spanish fluwhich was the same H1N1 subtype killed 20 and 100 million people.

Thats million.

50,000 in Canada alone, so that would be a 200,000 death toll in today's numbers.
I can't even imagine what this would look like.

[Psudo]

TattoodGirl wrote:

Proculation wrote:

maybe we should inoculate everyone and let Darwin decide.

Screw that I will take my chances with the zombies...I have a plan

What? Nobody does that. =]

Your Zombie Plan.com mentions Swine Flu (either the disease itself or the vaccination for it) as a possible start to the zombie menace. Haha


As for the 1918 Spanish Flu, the disease killed by triggering cytokine storm (aka hypercytokinemia) rather than killing by it's own effects. The medical science at the time kept misdiagnosing it because the symptoms were of cytokine storm rather than influenza. That won't be happening this time because 1) we've heard of such things and know to look for them now, and 2) our medical science is dramatically better in general than it was 90 years ago. Also, I've seen nothing that says Swine Flu kills by triggering other potentially fatal conditions and quite a few claims suggesting that it might not be able to kill without combining with another disease or immune system weakness.

[Psudo]

Update: The WHO says 2,185 dead worldwide, and "the disease is generally mild, and most people infected make a complete recovery within several days."

Breakdown by nation:
557 in Brazil, 522 in the USA, 439 in Argentina (top death tolls) [source]
193 in Mexico [source]
119 in Thiland [source]
111 in India [source]
71 in Canada [source]
66 in the UK [source]
41 in Venezuela [source]
23 in Saudi Arabia [source]
21 in Israel [source]

The sum of those is 2,163, so I wasn't able to find the national origins of 22 of the deaths.

It certainly didn't look this bad when there were only 8 deaths worldwide. Using the same calculation as before (at most 1.6 million doses per fatality), the current death count justifies up to 3.5 billion vaccinations. So, mathematically, I've got no problem with what they're doing now. I'm still not getting a vaccination myself, though.