How well do you think the swine flu crisis has been handled?

[curious]

I'm in Mexico, but out of any of the affected areas. It has been interesting to watch. The trend tends to be that there were not nearly as many cases as thought, and the virus isn't nearly as virulent as originally thought. I think that it being a new type of virus (human, bird, and swine combined) is part of what caused the extreme reaction. Also, without the appropriate testing equipment, Mexico seems to have been pretty conservative in classifying cases as H1N1. Now that they have the appropriate testing equipment, it's turning out that less than half the suspected cases are actuallly H1N1.

So, did everyone overreact? Is that the prudent thing to do?

 

[GekiDan]

A lot of people I saw on tv overreact on this Influenza A H1N1 virus, previously known as swine flu. For example, in the market, stores that are selling pork doesn't have customers since they are thinking that eating pork can give you swine flu. But DOH(Dept of Heath) told us that we cannot get this by eating pork. We could get this by physical contact.

 

[The Parakeet]

The CDC and WHO actually handled it pretty well. Generally calm and proactive in ensuring that everyone was aware and ready to handle it. The media did its usual fear-mongering, but that's to be expected. It was Sweeps week, so they were going to do something to push up ratings anyway.

I am still saddened by mankind's gullibility. I know several smart people who were convinced that this was going to be the Black Death. The panic was just ridiculous. I wish people would realize that this is the third "deadly pandemic" to hit us in about 5 years...we're still here. Get back to me when it's Ebola.

Plus, you have a lot of individual tragic events. Egypt slaughtered about 300,000 pigs for no reason.

 

[curious]

I'm not sure that initially the fear wasn't justified. There has never been a flu like this one, made up of human, swine, and bird viruses mutating into one. The infection and death rates looked high. Mexico did the right thing, I think, in tagging anything that resembled it as the flu. It turned out that less than half actually had the new strain, so it wasn't spreading as fast as they thought.

But this is one case where overreaction is probably best. When you read about things like the Black Death, and realize how quickly it spread, it is rather scary.

 

[GekiDan]

Plus, you have a lot of individual tragic events. Egypt slaughtered about 300,000 pigs for no reason.

That's really a cause of overreaction and leads to animal abuse. They should've checked up the pigs first before doing so. And as far as I know, WHO had said that H1N1 is not transferrable from pig to human. So how come this virus affects human? And how was it transferred from swine to human?

Nowadays, it seems to me that the news about this is fading slowly. Because there are no recent news about this in the media.

 

[deanhills]

I'm not sure that initially the fear wasn't justified. There has never been a flu like this one, made up of human, swine, and bird viruses mutating into one. The infection and death rates looked high. Mexico did the right thing, I think, in tagging anything that resembled it as the flu. It turned out that less than half actually had the new strain, so it wasn't spreading as fast as they thought.

But this is one case where overreaction is probably best. When you read about things like the Black Death, and realize how quickly it spread, it is rather scary.

I completely agree. In fact, I think they waited too long before they acted, as the virus was already doing its bad thing in Mexico a number of weeks before the information was released to everyone. Possibly if everyone had been advised longer in advance, people could have been more alert and some people who actually died, could have been saved.

Difficult task though to do a balancing act between panic and calm. Perhaps from that point of view it went OK, perhaps a fraction too calm for me and a fraction too late in breaking the news.

 

[GekiDan]

Take a look at this blog entry: http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/141302
I don't really understand why did they compare swine flu epidemic to what happened to World of Warcraft years ago.

 

[curious]

That's really a cause of overreaction and leads to animal abuse. They should've checked up the pigs first before doing so. And as far as I know, WHO had said that H1N1 is not transferrable from pig to human. So how come this virus affects human? And how was it transferred from swine to human?

Nowadays, it seems to me that the news about this is fading slowly. Because there are no recent news about this in the media.

Apparently the program for World of Warcraft that handled the 'corrupted blood' virus was a really good model of how viruses spread, so it can be useful in the real world.

I've been reading a lot about how adaptable viruses are. We are exposed to billions of viruses all the time, and when two strains encounter each other, they can merge, and then the merged virus can merge with another.

I just read that researchers in Hong Kong think the virus has been around for months, and no one picked up on it being new and different.

I think Mexico would have realized it was new more quickly if there hadn't been so many cases of H3N3. Remember the school group that had been to Mexico, and eight of them got sick? It turned out only one of them had H1N1, the rest had H3N3.

 

[The Parakeet]

The World of Warcraft thing is actually fascinating. The Corrupted Blood incident is one of the best free world examples of a pandemic. Infected individuals continued to cause widespread disease. People ignored Blizzard's warnings to avoid city centers, and therefore more and more people keep the virus going. The only solution was to spread out and basically abandon the cities until it died out (once Blizzard stopped the spread).

 

[GekiDan]

The World of Warcraft thing is actually fascinating. The Corrupted Blood incident is one of the best free world examples of a pandemic. Infected individuals continued to cause widespread disease. People ignored Blizzard's warnings to avoid city centers, and therefore more and more people keep the virus going. The only solution was to spread out and basically abandon the cities until it died out (once Blizzard stopped the spread).

It morely like what happened in Mexico. I understand now why did the blogger compared them. But it seems that there are much lesser people affected than expected.

 

[curious]

The Mexican government, wisely I think, assumed anything that came close to looking like the swine flu, was the swine flu. Apparently only about 40% of the cases were really swine flu.

I'm in Chiapas right now, and for the first time they are reporting cases here, and only in the city I'm in.

I have a cold, and cough and sneeze, and the reaction I get to coughing is amazing. I'm sure I don't have the flu, because apparently it causes I high fever and I have none. Besides, I'm having trouble breathing through my nose. Anyway, I'm taking a tremendously long bus ride starting tomorrow, and spent a big $1.25 for some masks so that people won't feel threatened being around me.

 

[GekiDan]

I have a cold, and cough and sneeze, and the reaction I get to coughing is amazing. I'm sure I don't have the flu, because apparently it causes I high fever and I have none. Besides, I'm having trouble breathing through my nose. Anyway, I'm taking a tremendously long bus ride starting tomorrow, and spent a big $1.25 for some masks so that people won't feel threatened being around me.

Have you gone to a doctor for possible diagnosis or you rather cure it yourself so that you will not be suspected with Influenza A? It is said in the news that one should ask for a doctor's help first before taking medications.

 

[deanhills]

I have a cold, and cough and sneeze, and the reaction I get to coughing is amazing. I'm sure I don't have the flu, because apparently it causes I high fever and I have none. Besides, I'm having trouble breathing through my nose. Anyway, I'm taking a tremendously long bus ride starting tomorrow, and spent a big $1.25 for some masks so that people won't feel threatened being around me.

I think there cannot be anything worse to be sitting in close proximity of someone who has a bad flu. I had someone with bad flu on a busride from Heathrow Airport to Gatwick once. There was a woman coughing behind me and sniffling like crazy. So much so that I moved to a different seat. That was a few months ago, long before the swine flu.

 

[curious]

Have you gone to a doctor for possible diagnosis or you rather cure it yourself so that you will not be suspected with Influenza A? It is said in the news that one should ask for a doctor's help first before taking medications.

It's a cold. There is no cure. As my family doctor used to tell me, "You'll get better in a week and a half or ten days, whichever comes first."

All I could do is take over the counter medicines for a cold and wait it out.

I did have an 18 hour bus ride ahead of me, so I bought some masks. I thought that if anybody stared at me, I'd start using the masks to make them feel better. As it turned out the worst of it was over, and I made my bus ride and flight home with no flu related problems. However, I sid feel considerably more susceptible once I got to the US. I changed planes in Dallas, and now I'm in Florida, and they have had flu cases in both areas.

One of the friends that was worried about my being in Mexico was visiting her daughter in an American town with less than 60,000 residents and three flu cases, while I was far away from the nearest case.

 

[deanhills]

It's a cold. There is no cure. As my family doctor used to tell me, "You'll get better in a week and a half or ten days, whichever comes first."

All I could do is take over the counter medicines for a cold and wait it out.

I did have an 18 hour bus ride ahead of me, so I bought some masks. I thought that if anybody stared at me, I'd start using the masks to make them feel better. As it turned out the worst of it was over, and I made my bus ride and flight home with no flu related problems. However, I sid feel considerably more susceptible once I got to the US. I changed planes in Dallas, and now I'm in Florida, and they have had flu cases in both areas.

One of the friends that was worried about my being in Mexico was visiting her daughter in an American town with less than 60,000 residents and three flu cases, while I was far away from the nearest case.

What is it like with wearing a mask, for 18 hours as well? How do you manage it?

 

[GekiDan]

What is it like with wearing a mask, for 18 hours as well? How do you manage it?

I have only tried wearing face masks for nearly an hour last New Year's Eve. Honestly, it is kinda hard to breath inside if you are not used to. Imagine you are wearing this for 18 hours and you not very used wearing this around, you will tend just to remove it to breathe some fresh air.

 

[deanhills]

I have only tried wearing face masks for nearly an hour last New Year's Eve. Honestly, it is kinda hard to breath inside if you are not used to. Imagine you are wearing this for 18 hours and you not very used wearing this around, you will tend just to remove it to breathe some fresh air.

Difficult for me to imagine as well. Must be pretty awful to be sick and travelling in the current atmosphere. I can just imagine all the other travellers glaring at snifflers and the masks on top of everything must make it most uncomfortable

 

[GekiDan]

The Philippines had their first Influenza A-H1N1 positive patient. She's not older than 15 and comes from the US. When she entered the thermal scanner, they didn't detect anything. She only got sick when they already returned home.

 

[deanhills]

This is a one in a million. They have just announced the first case in the UAE. And you would not believe it, he is working in the same organization and in my Department, sits two offices away from me. He returned from a trip in Canada to the UAE last Sunday, came to work for one day, and then we received an e-mail that he has been admitted to Hospital for flu but that it was not swine flu. Yesterday it was officially announced that he had the virus. We were all advised individually. So pretty close to home.

I learned that different Governments deal differently with people who have been in close proximity, and in our case there was nothing like sending us home or providing us with kits. So in answer to the question how the swine flu crisis has been handled, it depends on the local authorities.

I feel confident however that I'm OK as this person acted very responsibly. The moment he thought he had flu symptoms he reported to the Hospital for testing. It took a few days for the test to be available, and I think it took him by surprise as well. This is something new I learned too, that the swine flu is not really as bad as we think it is for people with normal health. I've had worse flu in 2000 when the Hong Kong flue was doing its rounds in Vancouver, BC.

 

[GekiDan]

The first swine flu case was in control, and is ready for hospital discharge, said by the Dept of Health. And there was another six suspected Influenza A cases. One of the case came from a marriage ceremony in the province. The suspected one came to the Philippines days before he knew that he already have Influenza A.