Swine flu 2009

Re: Swine flu outbreak in Mexico

Yeah, no kidding. Good luck with all that.

They canceled all the futbol matches in Mexico today. Wonder if it got really hairy in Texas, if the UIL would cancel all the baseball and softball playoff games as well as the state track meet.

 

Re: Swine flu outbreak in Mexico

I'm ready to make like Jesse James and take to the Canadian River valley, where I'll live the life of a ramblin' flu-avoider.

 

Re: Swine flu outbreak in Mexico

That would be nuts, but it would save our paper a bunch of money!

 

Re: Swine flu outbreak in Mexico

The governor who a few weeks ago wanted to refuse the federal stimulus money and talked about seceding from the United States is now requesting assistance from the federal Centers for Disease Control for the swine flu outbreak.

http://www.sanmarcosrecord.com/local/local_story_115145845.html

Help the Texans, not their hypocrite governor.

 

Re: Swine flu outbreak in Mexico

I don't have a ton of medical knowledge either, so forgive me if I'm wrong on this.
What makes the flu so dangerous is it's always mutating. So each year you basically end up with a new disease, some much more serious than their predecessors. That's why, when a new strain like this or the bird flu surfaces, there's always a brief period where it's extremely dangerous because there's no vaccine or cure for it. The CDC is basically doing educated guesswork for the next vaccine.
It's also why a flu shot is not 100 percent effective. If you get vaccinated against Strain A, and then Strain B infects you, you can still get sick. There are probably enough common antibodies in both strains that you won't die unless your immune system is weakened by age or some other illness. But a particularly nasty strain can overwhelm even healthy immune systems.
What makes this one scary is, it seems particularly strong; it's in an impoverished country where living conditions can help the disease spread (lots of people in close, unclean conditions); and it's close to the U.S., which scares us for obvious reasons but could also facilitate a rapid global pandemic. Since the flu spreads from person to person, if you get 100 infected people flying around the country and then the world, you could spread the disease globally in a matter of days.
Even though it's fiction, read the first couple hundred pages of Stephen King's book "The Stand". It'll give you an idea of how something like this can spread from one or two people to one or two billion in a hurry.

 

Re: Swine flu outbreak in Mexico

Two confirmed cases in Kansas: <a href=http://www.kansas.com/690/story/787839.html>via Wichita Eagle</a> Businessman and his wife. He went to Mexico for business and brought back a souvineer, but neither needed to be hospitalized, so that's positive.

That's just a liiiiiiiiiiittle too close to home for me. Thank god I don't live there anymore but yowza. There's a 95 percent chance that I know these people.

 

Re: Swine flu outbreak in Mexico

Anybody else feel like this is being blown out of proportion?

 

Re: Swine flu outbreak in Mexico

I'm sure hoping it is.

 

Re: Swine flu outbreak in Mexico

Perhaps a bit, but truthfully I think it's receiving the right amount of coverage. Thankfully it hit during the weekend so we didn't have to hear the talking heads droning on about it. Come Monday that may change.

 

Re: Swine flu outbreak in Mexico

I'm just waiting for my mother-in-law to emerge and tell me that I'm doomed b/c I eat ham, and that my wife--nursing a cold--is probably carrying the Swine flu.

 

Re: Swine flu outbreak in Mexico

Luckily, you need more than 8 seconds of exposure to contract it...

 

Re: Swine flu outbreak in Mexico

kleeda is kind of an alarmist, so I was willing to write it off as crazy talk...until it led the NBC News Friday night and until it DOMINATED CNN today.