Comments for WHO raises pandemic alert to phase 4 - Swine flu- msnbc.com »
Posted By y_soitenly 8 months, 1 week ago in NewsThe World Health Organization has raised its pandemic alert for swine flu by one level to phase 4, two steps short of declaring a full-blown pandemic.
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y_soitenly8 months, 1 week ago
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FTA~
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WHO says the phase 4 alert means sustained human-to-human transmission is causing outbreaks in at least one country. It signals a significant increase in the risk of a global epidemic, but doesn't mean a pandemic is inevitable. -
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y_soitenly8 months, 1 week ago
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FTA~
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Many experts think it may be impossible to contain a flu virus already spreading in several countries.
The WHO did not recommend closing borders or restricting travel because it would have little effect, if any, on stemming the spread of infection.
“At this time, closing of borders would not be effective at doing that,” Fukuda said.
Everyone is at risk for the swine flu.-
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nostalgia8 months, 1 week ago
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It was just announced on TV that a tourist from Mexico is now in a hospital in Florida and has been diagnosed with the swine flu
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The person visited Disney World
Isn't it time to stop all but absolutely necessary travel between Mexico and the US?
How many people did this one person infect - airplane, hotel, Disney etc etc
Economic concerns are trumping sound epidemic controls
Here is the report online:
http://www.wftv.com/news/19311020/detail.html#--
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willottica8 months, 1 week ago
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"Economic concerns are trumping sound epidemic controls" -- and you want fear to trump personal liberty.
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More people smuggle drugs across the border than smuggle Swine Flu. Probably even more do so unknowingly. And there may even be more deaths caused by it. Does the drug trade necessitate shutting down the borders completely?-
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nostalgia8 months, 1 week ago
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"you want fear to trump personal liberty"
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No I want sensible epidemic controls
Simply asking people have you been sick or are you sick now and handing out sheets of paper with symptoms is not control
This is what you see when economies are so dependent upon trade. Economic considerations trump human concerns
How many people in this country are you willing to see die in order to maintain trade?
Even the State Dept has issued a warning suggesting people limit all but essential travel to Mexico. Yet where are the calls to limit travel from Mexico into the US? Does that make even an iota of sense to you - don't travel TO the country with with the highest incidence yet permit people FROM that country to move freely into the US?
We already know who is most likely to die from this flu - people between ages 25 and 45 according to what we are seeing in Mexico
I wouldn't be surprised to see this statistic increase in even lower age groups
They have also failed to tell people if someone in the house has the flu, the other people in the house should stay home - no work, school etc
Otherwise you are going to have people from the infected house spreading the flu to others
Common sense is all that is required yet we aren't seeing anyone willing to step forward and give the needed advice-
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willottica8 months, 1 week ago
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But rates of infection and even death rate from this flu are, if you look at recent news, not unlike the rates from ordinary flu strains. There are 6,000 flu deaths in Canada each year... so far none from the Swine Flu. I would assume that this number is about 10 times as high in the states. With one confirmed death: of a toddler, the age group most prone to death from other flu strains.
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Before labeling an "epidemic" there should be some reason to believe it is one.-
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nostalgia8 months, 1 week ago
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"Before labeling an "epidemic" there should be some reason to believe it is one."
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You better pay closer attention
Swine flu: pandemic alert level raised to level 5
he World Health Organisation tonight raised the pandemic alert level to five out of six after the continued spread of swine flu world wide.
Margaret Chan, the organisation's director-general, said tonight: "I have decided to raise the current level of influenza pandemic alert from phase 4 to phase 5.
"Influenza pandemics must be taken seriously precisely because of their capacity to spread rapidly to every country in the world."
Making a call to governments worldwide, she said: "This change to a higher phase of alert is a signal to governments, to ministries of health and other industries, to the pharmaceutical industry and business industry that certain actions must be undertaken now with increased urgency and at an accelerated pace."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and...
What does Level 5 mean?
Phase 5 is characterized by human-to-human spread of the virus into at least two countries in one WHO region. While most countries will not be affected at this stage, the declaration of Phase 5 is a strong signal that a pandemic is imminent and that the time to finalize the organization, communication, and implementation of the planned mitigation measures is short.
Because governments refused to act at the early stage by shutting down people leaving Mexico, the entire world will suffer
Economics trumped human suffering and life
They know what they have to do when an epidemic/pandemic threatens
Have you heard ANY official of the national govt say that if a member of the household comes down with this flu EVERYONE in the house needs to stay home - quarantine
That was one toddler death and according to the local news the family was from Mexico
They crossed the border at Brownsville TX to get the child medical care
The child was so sick that they flew the child to Houston
The most susceptible to death from the flu is usually the very young and the elderly
That is not what is being seen in Mexico
According to the reports here in Texas, most of the deaths have been in the 25-45 year old group
As I posted before I'm won't be surprised to see the death rate rise in the younger ages as well
"There are 6,000 flu deaths in Canada each year"
Normal rate of deaths from a regular flu is under 1%
According to an article I read "Mexican officials informed the Canadian health agency that the "case-fatality rate was relatively high" and that most cases involved healthy adults between the ages of 25 and 44."-
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willottica8 months, 1 week ago
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Yes, based on the number 159 out of 2500, the case-fatality rate is high. But it seems like the infection of only 2500 people, when the virus originated in Mexico City (over 8 million in the city itself, metropolitan area > 22 million), is far less than it should be if the virus is as contagious as a level 5 would indicate. So they're not detecting as many cases as there are, perhaps only testing those who are seriously ill for it. How many mild cases have gone unreported?
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Compare that to the rest of the world, where everyone with a sniffle is being tested, and you see MUCH lower incidence of serious cases. In fact, if as you say, the toddler death was from Mexico, too, then there have been zero non-Mexican fatalities!
I don't care what the WHO says, it sounds like a case of [bark > bite].
Swine Flu in Perspective:
http://daily.sightline.org/daily_score/archive/200...-
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nostalgia8 months, 1 week ago
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"when the virus originated in Mexico City (over 8 million in the city itself, metropolitan area > 22 million)"
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Where are you getting your information?
The 39-year-old woman who was the first to die in Mexico's swine flu epidemic spent the last eight days of her life going from clinic to clinic to find out what was wrong with her but doctors were baffled.
The woman, from the southern state of Oaxaca, died shortly after being admitted to hospital as an emergency case. Experts only identified the virus that killed her 10 days later.
The woman, who worked as a census taker in the city of Oaxaca, became ill with what was she thought was a severe case of pneumonia on April 4 but was not admitted to hospital until April 12.
Mexican health officials are still scrambling to understand how the illness broke out. Attention has focused on a town in Veracruz state near a large pig farm where another confirmed case of swine flu in a human was detected.
But Lezana said the presence of Eurasian swine flu genes in the H1N1 virus makes it unlikely that the disease originated in a Mexican pig farm.
Oaxaca is one of Mexico's poorest states, but victims of the flu have been found in wealthier areas including the capital.
The cause of the woman's death was not determined until April 23 when a previously unknown flu virus combining strains of swine, bird and human flus was identified.
http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUST...
This looks like a very early case - April 4th
This is ~2 weeks before the reports of cases were coming out of Mexico City
As far as the "zero non-Mexican fatalities" it's far too early to be complacent about this
According to a report from yesterday 7 people in the US have now been hospitalized
That's a large number considering the number of reported cases
According to the CDC:
"I fully expect we will see deaths from this infection," as swine flu cases are investigated, said Richard Besser, acting director of the federal Centers for Disease Control.
Governments are trying to prevent panic but are failing to act to contain the spread-
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willottica8 months, 1 week ago
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Okay, so the origin may not be Mexico City, but there is an outbreak there, so my point is not invalid.
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A large number considering the number of reported cases? Maybe. Or maybe, like most flus, people either don't bother going to the doctor until it's already quite serious (I wouldn't if I lived in a land of for-profit healthcare) or they go and the doctor tells them it's just a cold or just the regular flu, and doesn't bother to test further.
You say it's far too early to be complacent; I say it's far too early to start panicking. And since it's already escaped from Mexico, there's really no way to contain it by banning travel to/from the country.
"I fully expect we will see deaths from this infection" -- Not exactly a stunning portent. I'd be surprised if ANY flu strain didn't cause some deaths.
By all means though, keep yourself and your family away from the public for the next several months - just in case.
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nostalgia8 months, 1 week ago
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This is going to get worse before it gets better
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Mexico faces criticism over swine flu response
Two weeks after the first known swine flu death, Mexico still hasn't given medicine to the families of the dead. It hasn't determined where the outbreak began or how it spread. And while the government urges anyone who feels sick to go to hospitals, feverish people complain ambulance workers are scared to pick them up.
A portrait is emerging of a slow and confused response by Mexico to the gathering swine flu epidemic. And that could mean the world is flying blind into a global health storm.
Despite an annual budget of more than $5 billion, Mexico's health secretary said Monday that his agency hasn't had the resources to visit the families of the dead. That means doctors haven't begun treatment for the population most exposed to swine flu, and most apt to spread it.
It also means medical sleuths don't know how the victims were infected—key to understanding how the epidemic began and how it can be contained.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D97R5N5O0_... -
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4thchance8 months, 1 week ago
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Calling out....EARTH TO ALL YOU DRONES...this pandemic crap is all a big diversion to take our minds off of what Obama is doing to our country. Here ya go, I'll prove it.
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last winter, about 36,000 Americans died from the flu. In fact, 36,000 flu deaths in America is an average of how many Americans die every year from the flu.
My question is this. While the flu last year was spreading all over the place and hundreds of Americans were dying EVER DAY from it, where was the big PANDEMIC ALERT for that?
Now we have this so called swine flu pandemic, about 20 Americans have become ill from it, only one needed hospitalization because of it, but yet the MEDIA is going crazy with reporting on it, ALERT ALERT WARNING WARNING get prepared, we're all going to die....
What a freakin bunch of crap all this is.
In the mean time, Obama yesterday was out GOLFING!
You're all a bunch of FOOLISH SUCKERS.-
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CRYMTYPHON8 months, 1 week ago
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Wow!
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That was some proof!
And the FOOLISH SUCKERS made the argument complete!
Silly people will say that past flu viruses are in the flu vaccine library;
they don't represent an epidemic threat;
- whereas a new strain freshly mutated to humans
would represent an illness we are not prepared for,
- and so we prepare before people start dropping like 1918 .
But that is just crazy talk .
Seriously, the newspapers and the web and the radio pick up on what people
are afraid of, and feed it back; there was more coverage than there needed to be,
- but that does not mean it is not serious.
Only that the world is quiet of late.
What terror color code are we at , anyway? -
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mesodude8 months, 1 week ago
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"Calling out....EARTH TO ALL YOU DRONES...this pandemic crap is all a big diversion to take our minds off of what Obama is doing to our country. Here ya go, I'll prove it."
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--Oil prices fell for a second straight day Tuesday on fears that the outbreak of swine flu would delay an economic recovery and further dampen energy demand.
Fears of pandemics have slowed the global economy in the past and officials with the World Health Organization, while raising alert levels Monday, warned against overreacting.
A global economic downturn has already led to a severe tumble in crude prices. A barrel of oil cost about $150 less than a year ago.
**Yeah, 4thChance. This "pandemic crap" would REEAAALLY benefit Obama. ROTFLMAO. Chickenhawk cons for 8 years and now chicken little cons. LMAO ;-p
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5...-
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4thchance8 months, 1 week ago
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We are being falsely warned of a coming pandemic, and all you have is that you're worried about how that's effecting oil prices. Ahahahahahah!!!
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This pandemic farce benefits obama by turning are attention away from how obama is ruining our country and economy...-
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CRYMTYPHON8 months, 1 week ago
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But what have you to say
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except the stuff the country has yawned at for months?
Wouldn't a clever Dem conspiracy keep you
forever on the talking points of
- the birth certificate
- the marxist plot
- the one-world plot
- the destroy-america plot
- and then back to his secret kenyan birth?
Jovial said yesterday,
the pandemic is a plot by Republican's,
to change the subject from torture.
I didn't buy that either;
but at least it would make a credible movie plot.
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y_soitenly8 months, 1 week ago
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Don't thousands of people die from the regular flu? What's special this time around?
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Generally, people who die from influenza are older people or those who already have respiratory problems. They end up dying of pneumonia. But this time around, the people who died in Mexico are younger. They are apparently healthy people in their 20s, 30s and 40s. That's a big deal. When a virus seems to preferentially affect healthy people, it suggests its a new virus and is causing an overreaction of the immune response. That's what happened with bird flu as well.-
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CRYMTYPHON8 months, 1 week ago
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Well explained.
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In the Great Influenza epidemic of 1918,
it did that; killed the young and health more often than the old.
If you google it you can see old photos of U.S. cities,
where everyone is wearing those masks.
I had no idea all that occurred in our country before.
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AndyJ2158 months, 1 week ago
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THE GOP IS ALSO the party that claims to have CHRISTIAN "FAMILY VALUES," but promoted the TORTURE OF PRISONERS, in violation of international law, according to THE INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS.
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There are many sources for that fact. Here’s one:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/16/terror/m...
And still, they try to deny that it happened or otherwise “cover” for it.
(The GOP is also the party of sex offenders Larry Craig and Mark Foley, graft expert Ted Stevens, convicted dirty trickster and burglar G. Gordon Liddy, lobbyist and GOP bribery expert Jack Abramoff, etc., etc.)
REPUBLICANS: THE PARTY OF FAMILY VALUES, BANKER BAILOUTS, CONVICTED FELONS, COVER-UPS AND TORTURE!
*** All or any part of this comment may be copied, re-posted, etc.
*** No copyright is claimed on it.-
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CRYMTYPHON8 months, 1 week ago
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You are spamming the system with the same post.
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You might be a liberal;
or a con pretending to be an annoying liberal;
- or just someone who likes to copy and paste.
There are serious things to be said about the politics of torture;
- which means you are required to say them seriously .
Copying and pasting as spam is pathetic reduction of the subject into nonsense.
Go away.
And you really can leave out the last 2 lines.
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tadair9198 months, 1 week ago
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during the scary swine flu of '76, congress ordered mass vaccinations. there were only 2 in congress who voted against it (dr ron paul and another doctor). in the end, 1 person died on the flu and 25 died of the vaccines. they said it "fizzled out," but 3% of the people who took the vaccine died in the first 5 days after having taken it, and 10% of the people who took it suffered from permanent damage.
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i still remember saturday night live skits where everyone got the swine flu and started turning into pigs.-
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y_soitenly8 months, 1 week ago
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Don't thousands of people die from the regular flu? What's special this time around?
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Generally, people who die from influenza are older people or those who already have respiratory problems. They end up dying of pneumonia. But this time around, the people who died in Mexico are younger. They are apparently healthy people in their 20s, 30s and 40s. That's a big deal. When a virus seems to preferentially affect healthy people, it suggests its a new virus and is causing an overreaction of the immune response. That's what happened with bird flu as well.-
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Dionys8 months, 1 week ago
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The big fear is the speed and total take from this virus. If the Mexico variant starts spreading quickly, with a 7-10% kill rate (according to current calculations and data), that means MILLIONS dead within a matter of months.
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The regular flu kills around 36,000 people a Year (in the US). Again, it's the fact that this variant strain spreads easily human to human and is a previously unseen variant. Which means few, if any, will have immunity. In addition the strain tends to kill those in the 20-50 year old range, which mimics the 1918 variant, responsible for millions of death.
These are just some of the reasons people are so concerned.-
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willottica8 months, 1 week ago
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...and a vaccine probably won't be available for 6 months. So IF it is as serious as they say, then the vaccine will come too late.
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But let's look at how serious it is: Mexico city is a city of nearly 10 million people. Supposedly, only 2500 have contracted the flu, and of those, 159 have died. But they haven't made efforts to determine all the infected people, they've just gotten EVERYONE to stay at home and isolate themselves. In the rest of the world, there are another 150 cases, and so far, a single death, that of a toddler. Though sad, this hardly seems cause for major concern. For comparison, there were 63,000 deaths from flu in the US in 2001.
Sure, it's a good idea to develop a vaccine for a new strain. But by the time it is ready, a mass innoculation program would likely not be called for. It's far too early to commit to something like that. The Spanish flu was estimated to have killed 25 million in the first 25 weeks.
And let's look at the school in New York. It's estimated that hundreds are sick. So far, no fatalities. If this is confirmed as a Swine Flu outbreak, then we will have a natural control group to look to for infection rates and casualty rates. Until those are proven to be higher than normal flu strains, then any widescale panic (and extreme reaction) is unnecessary and hasty.
Sure, if you want to panic on a personal level, go ahead and buy a mask. But as with SARS (less than 800 deaths worldwide) it may prove much less of a realistic threat than all the flu strains already floating the globe.
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