Posted on 04/27/2009 11:55:13 AM PDT by Steelfish
American swine flu cases climb to 40
U.S. plans to issue travel advisory to Mexico; 2,000 there have fallen ill
April 27: Richard Besser, M.D., Acting Director for the CDC, says the swine flu outbreak in the U.S. is evolving and changing rapidly, and that the CDC will be releasing an advisory for travel to Mexico.
There are growing worries that the swine flu strain has “pandemic potential.”
Learn about the virus found in pigs and why it is causing concern among health officials.
The number of confirmed cases of swine flu around the world has climbed to 73, with 40 of them in the U.S., the World Health Organization reported Monday. WHO officials say they are "very concerned" about the disease's spread. A New York official said the city has 28 cases of swine flu at one school, with 17 additional probable cases.
President Barack Obama said Monday the threat of spreading swine flu infections was a concern but "not a cause for alarm," while customs agents began checking people coming into the United States by land and air.
The United States government will issue a new travel advisory to Mexico later today, said Dr. Richard Besser, the acting head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during a Monday press conference. He said travel to Mexico should be avoided out of an “abundance of caution.”
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
It must really annoy the Hussein in him.
How come nobody’s dying if it’s such a public health emergency?
He said travel to Mexico should be avoided out of an “abundance of caution.”
Rocket scientists everywhere!....As if we had to wait to hear it from some dumbass in charge!
So who cares if some people are catching this variant of flu? So what???
We already have the ACLU variant of a president!
They are only dying in Mexico because their health care system is garbage..no one has died of Swine Flu here. It can be treated with Tamiflu if detected early enough, it’s just a regular flu. The Obama Administration just wants to take the focus off of his incompetence and then say how we need socialized medicine to fix this “emergency”
Nothing to see here, move along.
Hey you, ya wanna get beat up or go to jail?
Now move along.
Somewhere I think I wrote about leftist capitalizing on the misfortunes of others as a matter of survival.
That sort of makes them the human version of maggots, doesn't it?
I'm assuming you mean "dying in America". I don't believe that there's been enough people in America infected yet to be statistically relevant. Where Mexico has almost 150 deaths with perhaps several thousand infected, America has only roughly 50(ish) confirmed cases.
CDC does expect people to die as the number of infected climbs here in the states.
Has the coronor come back with results yet on that crime last week we were all busy solving — the Freddie Mac CFO gunshot/hanging “incident”?
You should join Mensa. Since nobody is dying in America, that was a pretty good guess on your part.
Hundreds of people die from the flu each and every year in the U.S.
It wasn't' a guess. It was the answer to a similar question that was directed at a CDC official this weekend.
Yes, from all sorts of flu viruses. Mostly the elderly and those with weak immune systems. Its a normal thing and it happens every year. So, who cares about a new flu bug going around if you are not elderly or immunally challenged?
Most people don’t realize that the flu shot’s effectiveness is a crap shoot every year. The CDC never knows whether they are preventing the right strain or not.
That would be good news to the WHO and the CDC if it were true. But there are no facts to back this up.
sw
The flu crisis is being flogged because it is not a problem. A solution will be found and Obama will take credit.
Katrina was small potatoes when compared to saving the entire American population from death and destruction.
The Brown Clown is the enemy
In mexico the virus has a kill rate of about 7% so far. If that were to hold for the US we’d expect only 3 deaths out of the people infected right now. Even if we didn’t get that right away it wouldn’t be statistically significant enough to conclude that the deaths in mexico were entirely due to poorer healthcare. The normal flu has a kill rate of about 0.03% in the US. Even if we see a kill rate of a mere 1% in the US, that would be 33 times higher than that of the ordinary seasonal flu and a cause for concern if it spreads.
Correct!
Yes. Another foreign made dilemma!
this might be the most useful post I’ve ever read. thx.
How do you know?
It’s a gamble on his part. It could, and probably will, go the way of the fort dix outbreak. A cause for initial concern, but ultimately fizzle in this country. On the other hand, if it spreads it could very well be a national disaster resulting in the deaths of hundreds of otherwise-healthy, fit people.
It will not spread because it is May and warm sunny weather.
Flu thrives on cold weather and lack of sunlight
Apparently this is not the case per Fox’s tele doctor.
Influenza is a virus, it only thrives once it is in a host. Theories for why this occurs mostly in winter are widespread, thought temperature is one possible factor in how quickly the virus breaks down outside a host. Whether because of sunlight or increased close contact indoors, it seems universally true that it spreads more in winter, but I wouldn’t stake anything on the season as a defense against a novel flu strain.
Healthy people have a certain level of incomplete immunity to seasonal human flu. Urban and suburbanites like me have no natural immunity to variants of the swine flu though, so we’re at nearly as much risk as the elderly if this bug really is a killer. The kill rate for seasonal flu is .03%, this has a kill rate of about 7% so far. It’s far too early to call it a dud in the US since we should only be expecting 3 deaths if the kill rate is unchanged. Even if we lose people at a tenth of the rate that mexico loses them, that’s still more than 20 times the kill rate of the seasonal bug.
Certainly something to watch carefully. I suspect, however, (and I hope I’m right) that this new flu is just the ticket to distract attention from the horrible economy and the assault on our constitution. I simply cannot trust the Federal government and the MSM to tell us the truth.
I understand your skeptisicm as it's well deserved with the group now in charge. But, "ordinary" flu rarely, if ever, kills young, otherwise healthy adults even in the poorest of countries with the least capable health care systems.
Dysentery, cholera, malaria, tetanus, Ebola and other exotic or tropical virus' are the most prevalent killers of the young and healthy in the third world. Influenza doesn't even make the lists. 150 deaths out of 1,500 or less infections is troubling.
I’ll take your word for it for now. But, I hope I’m right and this is just a fluke flu.
Yeah, don't do that. My wife tells me I'm always wrong. But, I read a book several years ago about the 1918 Spanish Flu. It was excellent. It's called FLU The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It..
It does a great job of detailing how the virus spread, why it was so deadly and what the next flu epidemic will look like. It's a well written and sobering account of that period in history.
What happens if you have children that do have problems?
I do, so I care.
Wasn’t piglosi stating something about torture a couple days ago? How about the report on that guy who killed himself?
Odd we’re not hearing about those things anymore.....
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/430261
I am keeping a cautious eye on this, but the feds and media sure are trying to whip up the hysteria.
Can’t let a crisis go to waste I guess.
Certainly, advanced medical and sanitation capabilities puts us in a much better position to either combat or prevent the outbreak of disease like we saw in 1918. But, ultimately, it comes down to the virus itself and two of it's primary characteristics: How virulent is it and How lethal is it?
Of course, advancements in technology also bring with it some other complicating factors, like the prevalence and ubiquity of world travel. Where the 1918 FLU literally took almost a year to circle the globe, this virus has cases springing up all over the world in just a few weeks.
As for nature's capacity to engineer a lethal virus, one needs look no further than HIV or Ebola. Both continue to evade a cure, like all virus.
This latest swine flu outbreak may or may not be the world's next great pandemic. It's far too soon to tell, but it very well may not be. On the other hand, just like a person who lives on the Gulf coast will eventually experience a hurricane, the world will again see another great and deadly pandemic. Like the hurricane, it's the way nature works.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.