I’ve never seen such a anticipation of a pandemic like this.
And it’s not just in the way of being prepared. It’s like they want it to happen and hope it will happen.
New York State is making workers get the vaccination . THe union is upset but seems to have no recourse . The new regulation, which requires vaccination against seasonal flu and the H1N1 virus, would affect workers and volunteers who come into direct contact with patients, including nurses, doctors and aides, and even nonmedical staff members like food service workers if they enter a patient’s room, a Health Department spokeswoman, Diane Mathis, said. And if you don’t get the vaccination you can’t work .....
A whole soccer team in Iceland catches the swine flu
18. Aug 2009 - 09:00
http://www.pressan.is/News/ReadIcelandicNews/a-whole-soccer-team-in-iceland-catches-the-swine-flu
The whole starting line-up of the premier-league team FC Grindavik has caught the swine flu. Last Friday eight players were already sick from the disease and the team´s game against FC Vestman Islands, scheduled on last Sunday, was been posthoned until next Thursday.
Most of the players are recovering but lack energy in training. Grindavik is a fishing village of ca. 2,500 inhabitents, south of the capital Reykjavik, close to Keflavik Airport.
Confirmed cases of Swine Flu in Iceland are now 118 of the 320,000 population.
Boston, MA:
Cases of swine flu higher among city blacks, Hispanics
By Stephen Smith
Globe Staff / August 18, 2009
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/08/18/cases_of_swine_flu_higher_among_bostons_blacks_hispanics/
First child victim of Swine Flu virus in Spain
The 11 year old boy is the third death on the Canary Islands and the 12th in Spain
By m.p. - Aug 18, 2009 - 1:20 PM
http://www.typicallyspanish.com/news/publish/article_22754.shtml
An 11 year old boy has become the first child victim of the A(H1N1) virus in Spain, and the country’s twelfth death from the new flu. He died on Monday evening at the Hospital Materno Infantil on Gran Canaria and is understood to have had a serious underlying health condition. The boy was admitted to hospital on 7th August and transferred to Intensive Care on Thursday last week, where he died at 7.45 on Monday evening.
He is the third patient to have died from the Swine Flu virus on the Canary Islands, and the regional government’s health department have confirmed to Canarias 7 newspaper that there are seven currently patients in Intensive Care Units on the islands confirmed as having the virus. Health councillor, Mercedes Roldós, said six of them have an underlying health condition. The seventh patient, a young woman, does not.
She said there are no plans to delay the start of the school year on the islands, as Spain’s Health Minister, Trinidad Jiménez, has also said for the country as a whole. The Minister has not, however, ruled out closing schools should the situation worsen and gave the average infection rate in Spain as 33 cases for every 100,000 people, much lower she said than in the UK, France or in Belgium.
She announced on Monday that normal flu vaccinations are to be brought forward this year to September.