Not to create a kerfluffle, but folks should be aware of this.
Love how they try to substitute swine flu for flu in the title while the article talks about flu in general.
Guess they are trying really hard to sell last years leftover and unwanted swine flu shots...
Pandemigogues!!!
=8-)
Fear of catching the swine flu is one of the reasons I don’t watch “The View”. (Stolen from that great American, Larry the Cable Guy).
I guess we better mandate flu shots for everyone. You think that government controlled health care might some day demand it, or deny you treatment if you refused your shot and got sick?
All they need to take is 10000 IU’s D3, unless they’ve outlawed nutritional supplements there. The D3 will prevent flu better than the flu shot, just without the mercury, msg, and animal body parts.
Interesting. I had the swine flue last year, and it sucked! There was a guy I grew up with that was in ICE for two weeks because of it.
The H1N1 didn’t hit as hard as was first feared, but is nothing to mess with.
The ‘pond’s’ not that far away...
btt
I’m not taking flu shots because they use thimersol (mercury) as a preservative. How can anyone tell me it’s safe to have this injected into my body when the people who remove it from the hospital do so treating the leftover shots as hazardous toxic waste?
I read this morning that Florida’s flu season has started early this year. With all the holiday travelers and even friends and relatives getting together from smaller areas, the bug is going to be spreading rapidly. Take precautions, y’all.
Ahhh, yes - time for the annual “government knows best” flu vaccine media blitz.
Importantly, the reason the NHS is overwhelmed with a relatively few number of IC patients, is because they, like most of the health systems in the West, including the US, are based on the “push” supply system.
This means they have very little extra of anything. They only get what they need for the number of patients they expect to have, plus just a little bit. Then, if say one hospital gets a few unexpected extra patients, all needing the same thing, say an antibiotic, they have to borrow supplies from other hospitals who have a little extra.
However, this can turn deadly in a hurry. As far as influenza goes, for example, the typical flu season in the US needs about 100,000 respirators. Nationwide, we have about 104,000 respirators.
This means that if there is a bad year for influenza, and you need a machine to help your breathe, you may very well get put on a waiting list.
And, of course, if there is a catastrophic health emergency, like a “killer” influenza, a LOT of people won’t be able to get any treatment at all.
And that is why we have triage. It means that the people who might live go here, the people who will probably die go there, and everybody else, well, it sucks to be you.
Thanks for the ping. Interesting how this, while seemingly more serious than last year’s outbreaks, is not getting much press.
Oh, wait. Obamacare has already been passed. Nevermind.
I will tell the kid’s about this. They were real good about using the hand sanitizer at school, washing their hands as soon as they got home, etc. They have been slacking on it this year.
Heh, hospital beds here are always difficult to get. Nothing new about this...
Thanks for the ping, Joe.
Whatever happened to bird flue that everyone here was so excited about?
I’ve been puking for 21 hours - can’t even keep a thimble of water down. Did have my hin1 vaccine. Maybe norovirus i might call 911 later if i still can’t drink.
The situation has gotten MUCH, MUCH worse in the UK since this article was posted.
As of a few days ago the number of people in intensive care in the UK was 4 times the level it was at during the peak of last year's flu season. The UK medical system is already in crisis, and the worst is not yet here. It has started in a number of other countries, including the U.S.
I have not seen anything on FR covering this. (The MSM, of course, is completely silent.) I don't have much time at the moment, but hopefully someone will start a thread on it. For personal reasons I have done very little posting on any board for about a year, and my ping list is woefully out of date.
This breaking story is mostly being ignored in the U.S. media, and what is out there is mostly wrong (surprise, surprise...). But here's a few starters:
...The vast majority of these cases are due to H1N1 infections, indicating that the H1N1 circulating in the UK has largely escaped the immunological response generated by infection or vaccination with the H1N1 circulating in the UK last season.
The vaccine breakthrough was initially cited in Australia over the summer, and related sequences have become dominant in the UK and other northern hemisphere countries where vaccine breakthroughs and dramatic increases in severe H1N1 cases is becoming increasingly common...
From Monotreme's Blog (A PhD specializing in flu. I am not Monotreme.):
Is there a more dangerous strain of flu in the UK
Recent reports indicate that the pandemic H1N1 virus is causing much more strain on the health care system in the United Kingdom this flu season than last year. For example, approximately 50% of all critical care beds are currently occupied by people infected with pandemic H1N1. And this is occurring early in the flu season. The peak in infections is likely weeks away.
Seems they cannot afford to heat their homes, so public transit is their means of staying warm during this coldest of winters for them.
Which in turn means more exposure to germs and viruses.