Fun Fact #2: It's not the Black Death! So quit being scared and watching the stupid TV News with updates every 30 seconds.
Good grief, people. I hate to see how the news media and government agencies would handle something as bad as the Black Death! That disease killed nearly one out of every six people alive.
Here is a little bit I swiped from Wikipedia regarding the Black Death to give you a little perspective:
The Black Death was, according to chronicles, characterized by buboes (swellings in lymph nodes), like the late 19th century Asian bubonic plague. Scientists and historians at the beginning of the 20th century assumed that the Black Death was an outbreak of the same disease, caused by thebacteriumYersiniapestis and spread by fleas with the help of animals like the black rat (Rattusrattus). However, this view has recently been questioned by some scientists and historians,[2] and some researchers believe that the illness was, in fact, a haemorrhagic fever based on epidemiological interpretation of historical records of the spread of disease.[3][4] However, a detailed account of the Great Plague of London of 1665 indicates that the clinical form of the disease of that period is more compatible with bubonic plague.[5]
The origins of the plague are disputed among scholars. Some historians believe the pandemic began in China or Central Asia (one such location is lakeIssykKul)[6] in the lungs of the bobac variety of marmot, spreading to fleas, to rats, and eventually to humans.[7] In the late 1320s or 1330s, and during the next years merchants and soldiers carried it over the caravan routes until in 1346 it reached the Crimea in South Eastern Europe. Other scholars believe the plague was endemic in that area. In either case, from Crimea the plague spread to Western Europe and North Africa during the 1340s.[8][9]The total number of deaths worldwide is estimated at 75 million people,[10] approximately 25–50 million of which occurred in Europe.[11][12] The Black Death is estimated to have killed 30% to 60% of Europe's population.[13][14][15] It may have reduced the world's population from an estimated 450 million to between 350 and 375 million in 1400.[16]
Graphic: Total Infections and Deaths from the Swine Flu in the USA (the one death was from a Mexican Citizen who died in Texas this past Wednesday).
You can track the evolving situation yourself at the CDC Swine Flu page, now renamed the H1N1 page in accommodation to political correctness.
The near-constant addition of 20 cases per day leads me to suspect the data from WHO, and to ponder if we are merely measuring the ability of labs to confirm new cases, rather than the actual spread of new infections. I will have a better feel for that on May 8th...the two-week point that should see the beginning of reporting of the third generation of data reporting.
As always, I will remind you that you have more to do with protecting yourself from the Swine Flu (or any other) than all the governments of the world put together. For some simple tips, visit Conservative Thunder.
Graphic: Infections and Deaths in the USA due to Swine Flu
Graphic: Swine Flu Numbers as of Friday morning.
The Politics of Swine H1N1 Flu
First, let me note that it appears that science is taking a back seat to politics at the CDC. They've accommodated special interest groups and changed the name of the disease from Swine Flu to H1N1. This is nuts! It does not give me any extra faith in their ability to handle an infectious disease, in fact, it lessens my confidence in the CDC.
Okay, now that that rant is off my chest, let's proceed with the breakdown of the spread of the Swine H1N1 Flu of 2009.
The CDC has a You Tube Channel that has increased dramitically in populairty in the past few days, currently receiving several honors:
I have found out that the one death in the USA is not even that of an America citizen...it was a Mexican toddler who was "visiting" Texas with his family and died there.
School Closings
The CDC is also recommending closing schools for at least 14 days if one or more children test positive for Swine H1N1 Flu, and here is a portion for the interim guidelines:
Sick people (students, faculty and staff) should stay home unless they need to seek medical care and stay away from schools regardless of whether schools and childcare facilities are operating normally or have dismissed students or closed, respectively.
Dismissal of students in a school and closure of childcare facilities should be considered in schools with one or more laboratory-confirmed or non-subtypable influenza A case among students, faculty or staff in order to decrease the spread of illness in the community.
Dismissal of students from schools and closure of childcare facilities should be considered for not-yet-affected schools and childcare facilities in the same area (e.g. a feeder school network or a geographic area) if more than one school or childcare facility in that area has confirmed or non-subtypable influenza A cases among their students, faculty, or staff. This would include preemptively dismissing students from schools in that area, including schools without current laboratory-confirmed cases.
Neighboring schools to those that dismiss students should also consider preemptively dismissing students from schools without current laboratory-confirmed cases. Issues to consider include geographic proximity and extent of mixing of student populations among area schools.
If a school dismisses students or a childcare facility closes, school or childcare-related gatherings should also be canceled. Parents and students should be encouraged to avoid congregating in large numbers outside of the school setting.
If a school dismisses students or a childcare facility closes, schools and childcare facilities should close for up to 14 days depending on the extent and severity of the illness and in close consultation with local and state public health officials (additional guidance on duration of school closures will be provided no later than May 8). This length of time is recommended because children are likely to be infectious for about 7 – 10 days after the onset of illness. Schools, in consultation with local and state public health officials, should evaluate daily the need for possible extension of the dismissal/closure based on local influenza surveillance information and the occurrence of new infections and severity of illness in the community from this virus.
Over 400 schools are reported to have closed. I guess some school districts are sharing an infected student since there are more schools closing than cases. Some school districts seem to be closing on rumors of Swine Flu being present.
Prevention
There is currently no vaccine for this particular strain of Swine Flu, but even if there were, there are enough atavistic people who would refuse to receive a vaccination to render it useless in preventing spread of the flu for fear of the one in a million chance of dying from the vaccination...even if there is a thousand times greater chance of dying from the Swine Flu itself. Perhaps this marks a return to the Dark Ages for mankind if the general population cannot distinguish the difference between a 1 in 100 or 1 in a 1,000 chance versus a 1 in a million chance. [Reaction to the 1976 Vaccination]
If people are going to refuse to be vaccinated, they should be prepared to be able to stay in their homes for several weeks straight, while the disease runs it's course, and burns itself out for this season.
Here is a section I am swiping from Wikipedia with advice on ways to prevent the spread of the Swine Flu:
Prevention in humans
Prevention of pig to human transmission
The transmission from swine to human is believed to occur mainly in swine farms where farmers are in close contact with live pigs. Although strains of swine influenza are usually not able to infect humans this may occasionally happen, so farmers and veterinarians are encouraged to use a face mask when dealing with infected animals. The use of vaccines on swine to prevent their infection is a major method of limiting swine to human transmission. Risk factors that may contribute to swine-to-human transmission include smoking and not wearing gloves when working with sick animals.[43]
Prevention of human to human transmission
Influenza spreads between humans through coughing or sneezing and people touching something with the virus on it and then touching their own nose or mouth.[44] Swine flu cannot be spread by pork products, since the virus is not transmitted through food.[44] The swine flu in humans is most contagious during the first five days of the illness although some people, most commonly children, can remain contagious for up to ten days. Diagnosis can be made by sending a specimen, collected during the first five days for analysis.[45]
Recommendations to prevent spread of the virus among humans include using standardinfection control against influenza. This includes frequent washing of hands with soap and water or with alcohol-based hand sanitizers, especially after being out in public.[46] Although the current trivalent influenza vaccine is unlikely to provide protection against the new 2009 H1N1 strain,[47] vaccines against the new strain are being developed and could be ready as early as June 2009.[48]
Experts agree that hand-washing can help prevent viral infections, including ordinary influenza and the swine flu virus. Influenza can spread in coughs or sneezes, but an increasing body of evidence shows small droplets containing the virus can linger on tabletops, telephones and other surfaces and be transferred via the fingers to the mouth, nose or eyes. Alcohol-based gel or foam hand sanitizers work well to destroy viruses and bacteria. Anyone with flu-like symptoms such as a sudden fever, cough or muscle aches should stay away from work or public transportation and should contact a doctor to be tested.
Social distancing is another tactic. It means staying away from other people who might be infected and can include avoiding large gatherings, spreading out a little at work, or perhaps staying home and lying low if an infection is spreading in a community. Public health and other responsible authorities have action plans which social distancing actions to request or require depending on the severity of the outbreak.
Crazy Talk From the Fringe
Now for the crazy talk, presented here for both entertainment and educational purposes. Entertaining because these people are nuts, and educational so that I can preserve their crazy talk so I can refer you to it in the future when the next hysteria arises, and I can point to this and say, "See, these people have no clue what they are talking about! Read what they said about the Swine Flu outbreak of 2009."
So, put you tin foil hats on, fasten your seat belts and follow me into the fevered swamps of conspiracy and paranoia...
There are claims that this outbreak is genetically engineered by people:
Swine flu panic is spreading in Mexico and soldiers are patrolling the streets after it was confirmed that human to human transmission is occurring and that the virus is a brand new strain which is seemingly affecting young, healthy people the worst. Questions about the source of the outbreak are also being asked after a public health official said that the virus was “cultured in a laboratory”.
“This strain of swine influenza that’s been cultured in a laboratoryis something that’s not been seen anywhere actually in the United States and the world, so this is actually a new strain of influenza that’s been identified,” said Dr. John Carlo, Dallas Co. Medical Director (video clip here).
Was this a slip-up or an admission that this new super-strain of swine influenza was deliberatelycultured in a laboratory and released?
InfoWars is the place where ignorant people read news and rumors written by ignorant people. Period, Paragraph, end of story.
Allow me to debunk this story by reporting that he was referrring to the labs' culturing samples taken from people to confirm whether or not the patient had Swine Flu or not. Any normal person who graduated High School (at least 1986 and before) should know this...I have no idea if today's High School students are taught this or not.
And from another conspiracy site:
According to two mainstream media journalists, one in Mexico City and the other in Jakarta, who spoke to WMR on background, they are convinced that the current outbreak of a new strain of swine flu in Mexico and some parts of the United States is the result of the introduction of a human-engineered pathogen that could result in a widespread global pandemic, with potentially catastrophic consequences for domestic and international travel and commerce.
The above article goes on to attempt a connection with Fort Detrick, the deaths of Microbiologists (I've seen the Microbiologist deaths tied to everything from 9-11 to Anthrax to SARS to Bird Flu and Equine Encephalitis), and a video report that The Dept of Homeland Security was spreading the Bird Flu.
To cap it all off...here is seven part video of the appearance of Alex Jones and Steven Qualye on Coast to Coast AM so you can hear them in their entirety to get a feel for how utterly wrong these nuts are:
Alex Jones stated in this appearance:
"This is clearly a designer virus. This clearly been man-made."
---Alex Jones on Coast to Coat AM in April 2009
I weep for the future of humankind because so many people believe this complete and total crap.
It is a very good sign that the rate of infection is not accelerating, although I want to wait at least a week or two before I firmly denounce this whole thing a case of media hysteria and over-reaction by the government.
By overstating the danger from this infection, and quickly moving to act on the event...it is a win-win situation for the government because if there is little danger of this thing killing as many people as the regular flu...then they can claim a success in stopping the disease. They can say.... "give us more money and we can stop even worse stuff than this."
If the Swine Flu of 2009 turns out to be able to kill tens of thousands, then they can say..."we didn't have enough money, give us more money so we can be better prepared."
Remember that the more money government (Federal, State, and Local) pours into education...the worse the education system becomes. It will be the same with health care.
I am very dismayed at the World Health Organization (WHO), who (pun intended) appears to be stoking the fires of hysteria:
The plea came as the WHO raised the swine flu threat awareness level to 5 out of 6, indicating that the world is on the brink of a pandemic. Holland and Switzerland both confirmed their first cases of swine flu on Thursday, bringing the total number of countries affected around the world to 11.
In Mexico there have been eight confirmed deaths from the virus, with another 160 suspected swine flu fatalities. There have been 93 confirmed cases in the US, 19 in Canada, 13 in New Zealand, five in Britain, four in Germany, 10 in Spain, two in Israel, and one in Austria. The US has confirmed the first death outside of Mexico on Wednesday, while a further "probable" case of swine flu has emerged in Glasgow, Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond told MSPs today. The new case is someone with travel links to an affected area, but he also disclosed that Iain and Dawn Askham - the first confirmed cases of the disease - had now been released from Monklands Hospital in Lanarkshire, where they had been receiving treatment in an isolation ward. Dr Margaret Chan, the WHO director-general, urged all countries to activate their pandemic plans as she made the announcement on Wednesday night. Phase 5 indicates that there is evidence of the virus being spread from human-to-human in at least two countries in one WHO region. Phase 6, the pandemic phase, is characterised by increased and sustained transmission in the general population. Dr Chan said that the world was better prepared for an influenza pandemic than at any time in history.
This is nuts. If we were to face a really virulent disease outbreak, how could we tell if it was a serious threat, other than by examining the real numbers and discounting the words coming out of their mouths?
You and I can do more than all the governments in the world put together to stop the spread of the Swine Flu by merely washing our hands, covering our mouths when we cough or sneeze, and by the frequent application of alcohol-based hand cleaners.
Stay safe, everyone...and don't panic just because someone on TV (or from the government) paints a bad picture so you will stay tuned to be scared even more.
Remember, no one said it better than Ronald Reagan when he said:
"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are:
I've been following the reports of infections in the U.S. and preserving data for the purpose of analyzing the rate of spread of the Swine Flu on Conservative Thunder, and here is a very preliminary report based on 5 days of data...
And I've updated the graph...
The reason I've included the graphs is that infections tend to follow a predictable curve as they burn through a population, and I want to see if this one follows that trajectory...
One very good piece of news is that the infection has reached a status where WHO has declared this a Level 5 Pandemic so quickly after the initial reports of infection. If the decision is a scientific one, and not driven by politics...then that means the Swine Flu will burn out relatively quickly, even if there are multiple waves of future infections...this means that the Swine Flu will be unable to reach levels seen in the 1918 Pandemic. It will probably be unable to even become worse than the regular flu...which kills between 30,000 and 100,000 people a year in the USA.
If the decision to jump the gun was a political one, then all bets are still off.
What I would like to see is criminal indictments of people in the media for inciting a panic.
It is no wonder that some people are freaking out over this Swine Flu outbreak in Mexico...especially with Cable News that is on and blaring updates 24 houirs a day, and an always on Internet that is full of speculation and rumors run amok.
Here is just a taste of the kind of stuff that can be found:
I'll start with the stupid, the Democrats are blaming the Republicans, even though Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer bragged about removal of funding "All those little porky things that the House put in, the money for the [National] Mall or the sexually transmitted diseases or the flu pandemic, they're all out" [Source]
and the insane Alex Jones "Swine Flu Special." Just give it a listen and see if you don't agree that he is completely insane and/or relishes his role in spreading fear of all things not him.
I have given up altogether of finding anything useful on twitter using Twitter Search due to the sheer volume of tweets and retweets and retweets of retweets on news, rumors, and conspiracy theories concering the Swine Flu.
To cut out on the completely unneccesary chatter, here are a few twitter accounts that I believe you should be following:
@sanjayguptacnn - CNN's Sanja Gupta is in Mexico reporting on swine flu
@WHOnews - news updates from the World Health Organization (WHO)
Also, check out the accounts that the above accounts are following...there is a treasure-trove of Federal and Health-related twitter accounts for you to check out.
And, perhaps the best one-stop shopping place for info right now is the CDC webpage devoted to the Swine Flu. You will find official information posted there, along with audio and video podcasts and transcripts of press conferences and phone conferences.
There are also pages concerning developments taken from media sources at facebook and Conservative Thunder, and don't forget the simple utility of just searching for yourself:
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