Well, as you’ve already discovered, posting a thread here which attempts to take a rational look at swine flu immediately sets you up as a target for a host of uninformed, misinformed, and at types just plain dumb comments.
There are people here who will almost literally crucify you just for trying to rationally and reasonably analyze and report on the situation. If there’s any real threat, they simply don’t want to know about it and will crucify you for trying to inform them.
It’s kind of depressing, really.
Already we’ve had our share of lulu comments on this thread.
1) “Sounds like the normal flu to me.”
Right after you’ve pointed out that the death rate appears to be roughly 10 times as bad as the normal flu.
Some people can’t be bothered to even read what was posted before asserting the exact opposite, based on... no evidence or source of information whatsoever. Just their personal opinion, which is of course authoritative.
2) “My daughter calls it the Hiney Swiney.”
So what? It doesn’t matter WHAT idiotic label your daughter gives it. It’s killing people.
If your daughter calls Ahmadinhejad “Barney the purple dinosaur” it doesn’t mean he won’t kill her with a nuke if he gets the chance.
3) “What a freaking joke.”
Tell that to the families of the 500+ Americans that have so far been killed by H1N1, and the 200,000 or so whose lives have been disrupted by it to this point, when it hasn’t even been flu season yet.
4) “The deathrate is rising with the use of the vaccine. This was a complete sham from the getgo.”
The vaccine hasn’t even been used yet!!
Again, any relevant facts don’t matter, as the poster’s uninformed personal opinion is authoritative.
5) “Do you know of anyone who has died of this? Do you even know anyone who’s gotten this flu?”
This is an understandable comment, and it represents an understandable, reasonable but completely inaccurate misunderstanding of the situation.
It’s akin to looking at a train rolling down the tracks towards us, and saying, “Do you know anyone who’s been struck by the train? No? Then there’s no danger.”
Or, another analogy: It’s like saying “Do you personally know anyone who has been killed by a terrorist? No? Then we shouldn’t do anything about terrorism, because we’re in no danger from it.”
(Incidentally, I do personally know someone who’s gotten this flu, and was laid up for quite some time. Again, this happened at a time far OUTSIDE OF the normal flu season.)
We haven’t had the this-is-all-a-total-fake-manufactured-NON-crisis conspiracy theory nuts weigh in yet, but I’m sure they’ll be here any moment.
Fortunately, we do have a few intelligent and informed comments:
1) “The reality is that we don’t know how many people have actually been sick from this flu. From what I understand, most people just stay home for a week or two and never go to the doctor for a difinitive diagnosis. The actually mortality could easily be half that reported. None of the people who’ve died in the US were pictures of health to begin with. Sorry, I just can’t get freaked out about this bug. I’m honestly a little more concerned about the vaccine.
But note: Even with a mortality rate half that reported, that would still imply a bug 5 times worse than the seasonal flu.”
And yes, there are valid reasons to be concerned about the vaccine. You just have to weigh the potential dangers of the flu against the potential dangers of the vaccine.
2) “Is it likely that the number of confirmed cases will not grow because testing has been suspended, but after a death there might be a test made, which would skew the percentage higher, by an unknown amount?”
This is an intelligent question.
3) “I see the exact opposite. HHS and Obama are downplaying the stats. Why isn’t the death rate approaching 1% headline news?”
4) “The median age of death in Australia for normal seasonal flu is 83. For this flu it is 56.”
5) “Two items that differ between H1N1 and the usual seasonal flu - the mortality rate is higher, and H1N1 is killing healthy young adults, not only the very young, very old, and those with other serious health problems. That’s why medical organizations such as WHO and the CDC are so concerned.”
I will add one more:
This flu is killing people in the prime of life.
We have no “herd immunity” to this virus, and without a vaccine we could reasonably expect approximately 1/3 of the country to come down with it over the next two years. That would be 100 million people.
If we should have a true CFR of 1%, that would be 1 million Americans dead.
Now I’m not expecting such a scenario to actually happen, because fortunately we have people actually doing something about the threat.
But the threat is real, and is well worth keeping an eye on - even with a vaccine.
Anyone who tries to claim otherwise just doesn’t understand what they’re talking about.
Yes it is. Wasn't aware of the intensity of it. It is disheartening. SARS is the one which bugs me. A lot of money and effort went into containing it, some in China risked the wrath of the communist government by exposing it and today SARS is used as an example of "see it was all hype!".
Appreciate the comments.