Posted on 05/01/2009 12:50:07 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Swine flu will carry the name "pandemic" even if the new virus turns out to cause mainly mild symptoms as it sweeps the world, raising questions about how serious the global alert actually is. Although it has been deadly in the disease epicenter, Mexico, and caused the death of one Mexican infant in the United States, in other countries people infected with swine flu have fared well, with diarrhea the biggest complaint.
The World Health Organization is expected to move quickly to designate a full pandemic -- at level 6 of its 6-point scale -- within days to reflect the continuing spread of swine flu among people who have not been to Mexico, including in Europe.
Margaret Chan, the WHO's director-general, on Wednesday night raised the world flu alert level from 4 to 5 and said: "It is really all of humanity that is under threat during a pandemic."
Echoing other infectious disease experts, and drawing on her experience fighting SARS and bird flu outbreaks as health director of Hong Kong, she said viruses such as the H1N1 swine strain needed to be closely watched in case they worsen.
"We learn from previous pandemics. Pandemic virus is precarious, unpredictable, and will take us by surprise," she told reporters at the WHO's headquarters.
PATIENTS RECOVERING WITHOUT DRUGS
But Chan acknowledged that the disease may well cause more discomfort than death, noting that many patients infected in the United States have recovered on their own and without medicine.
"It is possible that the full clinical spectrum of this disease goes from mild illness to severe disease. We need to continue to monitor the evolution of the situation to get the specific information and data we need to answer this," she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxcountry.net ...
“...with diarrhea the biggest complaint.”
I thought this affected the lungs and that stomach flu (not really a flu) was some other virus.
I vote it’s an 0’crisis to conceal his work of destruction.
I wonder how Obama will make sure this “crisis” doesn’t get wasted.
It kind of defeats the point of having a scale if even a small out break ranks a 6.
The CDC is reporting that for some reason, the particular strain this time has genetic codes consisting of 2 swine, 1 avian, and 1 human viruses with the average age group most being affected to be 22 years old.
I think it's more directly descended from the X-Box / IPod crossed strains that surfaced from mommy & daddy's ccard run ups that surfaced back in 2005 after the left coast houses started flippin' out.
It's another contrived diversionary sham brought about by the NWO cronies that control the dark liquidity pools, banks, and hedge funds.
Besides, even some of the mod Dim lifelong voters are finally realizing how big a 0 Obummer really is and how quickly our country is being flushed by runaway socialist politicians now in control of Congress.
If one looks at what is happening to the auto, insurance and banking industry, it really is a trial run to measure the effectiveness of certain goobermint agencies like FEMA's internal 'get ready' drills with a few other agencies to see if marshal law can be implemented quickly.
Think about the timing of this 'outbreak' and our recent million man Tea Parties?? You can surely bet non-elected goobermint heads and long term Congress whores took big notice and piss ran down their legs.
This flu 'pandemic' is not a chance occurrence......it's been created. We have so many strains of H1N1 frozen in Level 4 labs, it only takes a few weeks to create a new strain in the lab using animals, then someone goes to a place like Mexico City and turns it loose.
Zzzzz.. What a hoax this has become.
Mild flu. Who doesn’t get laid up in bed once a year? This entire story and the reaction of institutions in this country to try to quarantine everyone from it is absolutely hysterical.
I’m not very worried.
The odds of this thing mutating again and becoming devastatingly lethal are very, very, very small.
Remember, we have flu around us all the time - basically forever. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if just about every living person was exposed to live flu virus each day, it just doesn’t get a good start.
Like I said on another thread, if we woke up tomorrow and they said 50 people had been infected and 42 had died, that would be a whole different phenomenon.
But that’s just not happening. People are recovering quite nicely. And remember, if you catch this strain and recover, you might have immunity to it in the future in case it mutates to something worse.
As far as epidemics go, this one is a snoozer...
I vote "set up". Of course, we may never know.
Hey, Zero! I'm going to say this very slowly:
If...there...is...a...verified...disease...coming...from...another...country...then...close...the...borders...Now.
I'm simply not buying the crapola statement, "Closing the borders now would do no good, since there are already cases here."
I was initially very worried. H1N1 plus swine flu plus human flu = the potential for a VERY bad pandemic.
The reality, though, is that so far this flu is less virulent and less lethal than the flu that runs around the planet every fall. BY FAR...
I agree. The World Health Organization wants to declare a 'pandemic' so they can make important sounding pronouncements. (I remember when an 'epidemic' was a bad thing, but over the last few decades they've invented new words to make it sound even bigger and scarier). When a virus is in several countries and can transmit itself from human to human via airborne transmission, there just isn't much that can be done to prevent big segments of people to be exposed to it. Influenza does kill millions of people worldwide each year and 10s of thousands here in the US. This new strain will be a part of that death toll this year, but perhaps not the biggest part. I gather that the thing that disturbed public health scientists the most was that this flu strain seemed unusually lethal in Mexico, but for whatever reason, that pattern doesn't seem to be continuing here.
I might be wrong but it seems to me there are fewer AOL and Yahoo headlines about this flu. It’s like it has outlived it’s usefulness and now will just go away.
Gorebull warming seems to be withering a bit, and the left needed some new medium to transmit and infect us with their agenda germs. Exit glowbull Warming, enter swine flu.
“Well, I think it’s great, all this media frenzy for a mild flu strain with dubious origins is brilliant, it’s helping me forget all about the decimation of millions of jobs, £$billions of peoples’ personal wealth, the massacre of cultural identity and the strangling of personal freedoms.”
Had misfortune to see cnn (spanish) in a waiting room yesterday, they are looking to instill full-blown panic. Wall-to-wall coverage of this topic.
Heard that it’s already dying down, not that it won’t rise again in the fall, or whatever, but this was much ado about nothing.
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.