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Posted on 04/30/2009 2:58:28 PM PDT by Bill Dupray
“I don’t know how much that hip replacement cost,” Mr. Obama said in the interview with David Leonhardt of The Times. “I would have paid out of pocket for that hip replacement, just because she’s my grandmother. Whether, sort of in the aggregate, society making those decisions to give my grandmother, or everybody else’s aging grandparents or parents, a hip replacement when they’re terminally ill is a sustainable model is a very difficult question.”
(Excerpt) Read more at patriotroom.com ...
Thanks.
More:
Hong Kong’s leader says the territory has detected a case of swine flu, in Asia’s first confirmed instance of the disease. Donald Tsang told reporters Friday the patient is a Mexican citizen who developed a fever after arriving in Hong Kong via Shanghai on Thursday. Tsang said tests by both Hong Kong’s Department of Health and the University of Hong Kong confirmed the diagnosis. He said the patient has been isolated in a hospital and is in stable condition.
In the coming days, the federal Centers for Disease Control will hand off swine flu testing and confirmation to the state health departments.
Once that happens, the confirmed cases will explode simply because our capacity to test will increase by a factor of 50.
thanks for the ping ..
I never said they were. A pandemic is spread of illness, not death. The relevance of an explosion of confirmed cases is that a confirmed case is one of the criteria for school closings in the State pandemic mitigation plans. An dramatic increase in confirmed cases would, therefore, imply an increase in school closings.
Obama couldn’t run a taco stand — do you want him playing doctor with your life?
Hong Kong confirmed Asia's first case of the new H1N1 flu virus in a Mexican traveller on Friday, prompting authorities to seal off the hotel where the 25-year old man had been staying. Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang told reporters the man arrived on a China Eastern flight on Thursday afternoon after a stopover in Shanghai. He had a fever and went to Ruttonjee Hospital for help on Thursday evening, Tsang said. The Mexican is now in hospital in a stable condition. The confirmation of the H1N1 infection was made by a laboratory at the University of Hong Kong.
"He didn't leave the hotel (except to go to hospital) because he was feeling sick," Health Minister York Chow told a news conference.
Two companions of the Mexican and a friend he met in Hong Kong were now in isolation wards at another hospital, he said. Tsang said he had accepted the recommendation of government health experts to seal off the Metropark hotel in Wanchai district where the Mexican was staying. Dozens of police wearing surgical masks stood guard both inside and outside the hotel late on Friday. Hotel guests were prevented from leaving while outsiders could not get in.
"I assure you the Hong Kong government will try its best to conquer the virus," Tsang said. "At the present moment, I would prefer to do it more stringently instead of missing the opportunity to control the spread of the virus."
Chow said the hotel had about 200 guests and over 100 staff and they would be quarantined for seven days. He urged those who were not in the hotel as well as taxi drivers who took the Mexican to the hotel and to hospital to report to authorities. The drastic action left some visitors distressed.
Cinmei Sinaga from Indonesia was left standing for hours on the pavement with her eight-month-old daughter. "I don't feel that they are doing anything to help me. I just need my passport but we cannot go to another hotel and my baby needs to sleep. I feel scared," she told Reuters.
The affluent financial hub on the south coast of China is widely seen as one of the best-prepared Asian cities to deal with the new H1N1 flu virus, given its experience in handling sporadic outbreaks of H5N1 avian flu, as well as SARS in 2003 which killed 299 people. The order to seal off the Metropark hotel brought back memories of how SARS started in Hong Kong in February 2003. A doctor from mainland China who knew he had been infected with SARS had travelled to Hong Kong to try to seek medical help. But before he could get admitted to hospital, he infected eight people in a lift lobby of the Metropole hotel where he was staying. Some of them then went on to spread the disease in Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada and Vietnam.
To tackle the H1N1 flu virus, Hong Kong authorities have beefed up surveillance at airports and hospitals, improved public health response systems and stockpiled over 20 million doses of the anti-influenza drug Tamiflu.
thank for the info !
You are welcome.
Looks like it is now in Russia:
Two Russian women have been hospitalized in Moscow as suspected of influenza A/H1N1 after returning from the United States, the Interfax news agency reported Friday, citing Russia’s chief sanitary official. “They are in satisfactory condition,” said Gennady Onishchenko.” Both women are citizens of the Russian Federation. One of them arrived in Russia from New York yesterday, the other today. They had a high body temperature, and in compliance with our requirements, they were hospitalized,” said Onishchenko. The women had been sent to an infectious diseases hospital, and had taken influenza A/H1N1, formerly known as swine flu, tests, he added. “Since they are running temperatures, they are receiving necessary treatment. Both are in satisfactory condition,” Onishchenko said.
and Denmark...
Denmark has confirmed its first case of H1N1 flu, a person infected in New York city, Jesper Fisker, head of Denmark”s Board of Health, said on Friday. Fisker told a news conference the person had been tested after complaining of flu-like symptoms during a Continental Airlines flight back to Denmark on April 29. He said the person had now nearly recovered but would remain in isolation until May 6. He said the person was receiving no treatment. Danish authorities say they are well prepared to handle any outbreak of the new strain of flu virus.
Thanks for your research I really appreciate it !!!!
Welcome to Carousel.
http://www.idemc.org/index.php?area=
you can subscribe to a Pandemic Monitoring System email list. I am getting news reports from all over the world sent to my inbox. Very handy. Like this one that just came in...
An NHS worker has been confirmed as Britain's first case of swine flu being transferred between humans within the UK.
Graeme Pacitti, 24, tested positive for the virus after coming into contact with football team-mate Iain Askham, who fell ill after his honeymoon in Mexico. Mr Askham and his new wife Dawn, from Polmont, near Falkirk, were released from hospital on Thursday after spending five nights in isolation. The positive test result was confirmed by the Scottish Government. It comes as a further case of the virus was announced by the Department of Health in the North West of England. The total number of people confirmed in the UK as having swine flu is now 10.
thanks for the info !
In line with my #89 above...
Western Oregon University closed over swine flu fears but other campuses open
http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2009/05/western_oregon_u_closing_after.html
I believe that we are going to get screwed, but we probably deserve that. The republicans were in power for years, and did nothing to solve the healthcare crisis in this country. We needed better regulations and better laws to protect people who forked over their hardearned money to insurance companies and got screwed.
And if you haven't sat in a cancer treatment room with other people going through the same thing, I can understand why your opinion might be different.
Or if you haven't had a child in college who came down with a serious illness but had to continue to take a full load of classes so she could be on our insurance you have no idea how absolutely screwey the laws are.
But just because you paid insurance for THREE FRICKING DECADES DOESN'T MEAN A DAMN THING.
We need better laws and regulations, but we're going to get a lot more than that. Get used to bending over for the government, but - hey! - I already know what that feels like. :(
I'll just come out and "type" it. That is one of the most naive statements I've ever read.
Try finding an attorney who will go to court to force your insurance company to pay that twenty thousand dollar hospital bill that it won't pay because it has "no record" of pre-approval. (Funny, the hospital had records.) Good luck. And if you do find an attorney, remember that the insurance company has a whole battery of high paid lawyers.
Anyway, I wonder where they thought my pre-approved cancer surgery was going to take place: the local Chik Filet? (And just so I'm absolutely clear about this - the hospital was on a list of pre-approved hospitals.)
You are just a peon against a mega corporation whose first obligation is to their stockholders - not to you!
Republicans should have overhauled this system with fair laws and regulations. They didn't.
Now, we'll see what we get.
Which touches on another thought. How much of a first-aid kit will the government let you have?
Will anything more than a Band-Aid be available OTC, or will you have to have a permit for a roll of gauze and some 4X4's in your private posession?
How about folks who have a need for diabetic supplies, etc? Will they be able to keep enough on hand for an emergency situation, or will they have to wait for the FEMA folks to show up?
Questions abound, but the free market is better at solving our problems than the Government has ever been.
Ping...(Thanks, DvdMom!)
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