Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Swine Flu Garners Pandemic Status [Level 6, and There Is No 7]
ABC News ^ | June 11, 2009 | Gitika Ahuja and Dan Childs

Posted on 06/11/2009 8:42:20 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

The World Health Organization this morning formally declared that swine flu had reached the level of a full-blown pandemic, moving the viral outbreaks to phase 6 on the pandemic alert scale.

WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan met with flu experts at 6 a.m. ET today in Geneva to discuss the spread of the novel virus, and since Wednesday the escalation to the highest level of pandemic alert had been widely anticipated.

The move reflects the continued spread of the virus around the globe, despite quarantines, school closings and other measures designed to keep it in check. Swine flu is the first official influenza pandemic in more than 40 years.

However, public health experts say there's no reason for the public to be more concerned about the virus today than yesterday; indeed, it is unlikely that much will change at all for the general public.

"From a macro view, the main actions defined for WHO phase 5 are the same as those for phase 6," said Dr. Julie Gerberding, former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "However, individual countries and communities may have conditioned key tactical and operational steps of their response to the WHO phases, so there could be significant local, regional, or national impact. Technically, we have been in phase 6 for some time."

"When you hear this announcement, and your children are with you, main thing is to reassure kids not really all that much is going to change unless things get more severe," Dr. Irwin Redlener of the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York, told "Good Morning America."

Other infectious disease experts were quick to point out that the pandemic designation refers to the spread of a disease -- not its severity.

(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Government
KEYWORDS: disease; flu; h1n1; influenza; mexiflu; pandemic; pandemicpanic; quarantines; swineflu; unitednations; who
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-49 last
To: colorado tanker

“It’s laughable this few cases would be designated a “pandemic.” I suppose they need to scare people to jack up their funding, but they have no credibility left with me.”

They are trying to warn and educate people about this flu, and what they should do if they have flu symptoms. With the information they provide, you can then make a more informed decision about whether you want to travel, etc. Would you prefer that they did not inform you when a contagious disease exists?

A pandemic is defined by the number and location of the virus. It has nothing to do with the severity of the virus, but many people don’t seem to understand what that means. There isn’t any debate at all over whether this is a pandemic or not. Clearly it is. This flu could be dangerous, or not, but no one knows what it is going to do at this point. There have been 30,000 plus cases confirmed by labs so far. They usually only run labs on the most severe cases, so there are many more cases that are not included in the numbers. Next fall they will have a much better idea of where this is heading.

It would be stupid to panic over this flu, at this point in time. It is equally ignorant to claim that it is not a pandemic, and it is all designed to scare people. I recommend that people pay attention to the information and recommendations made by the CDC. They are doing a good job on this flu.


41 posted on 06/12/2009 10:14:12 AM PDT by ga medic
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: ga medic

Merely preparing us for the one that is about to be unleashed is my guess ...


42 posted on 06/12/2009 10:14:46 AM PDT by Scythian
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 41 | View Replies]

To: ga medic
I don't have grounds to suppose CDC isn't following all the right protocols and regulations on this.

But they hurt their credibility with the public by using this terminology. They won't be taken as seriously when a real epidemic comes along.

43 posted on 06/12/2009 10:25:15 AM PDT by colorado tanker ("Lastly, I'd like to apologize for America's disproportionate response to Pearl Harbor . . . ")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 41 | View Replies]

To: colorado tanker

I think you are confused by the terminology.

Pandemic: A sudden outbreak that becomes very widespread and affects a whole region, a continent, or the world.

Clearly this flu is at a pandemic stage.

Epidemic: A sudden severe outbreak within a region or a group

This flu also meet the definition of epidemic. I don’t understand what you mean by a real epidemic. This is already a real epidemic, and there isn’t any dispute over the use of that term.

The flu can be very dangerous. around 20-30,000 people die of the flu in the US each year. That doesn’t mean that each person who gets the flu is in mortal danger, only that it is dangerous to society as a whole. With this flu, there is limited immunity in the general population, which means a greater number of people are susceptible to becoming ill. Put that together with the fact that flu viruses mutate quickly and can become very virulent, and there is a real risk to this.

H1N1 has a history of killing as many as 100 million people, so we already know the potential to become virulent is there. There were some young people in 1918 who were completely healthy when they woke up in the morning that died by the next day. Right now, the flu is no where close to being this dangerous. It probably won’t become as dangerous as the 1918 virus, and if it does, we have far more knowledge and ability to treat it.

They are not trying to panic people, only to inform them on the progression of this disease. It is very important to medical professionals and first responders such as myself to have this information, so that we can make the proper determinations about care for those who are ill.

China is a perfect example of taking this precaution way too far (IMO). They are unlikely to prevent this flu from entering their country, yet actually holding people against their will. Comparatively, the US is acting in a very responsible way. We all have a choice of how much risk we want to take with respect to this virus. As long as that doesn’t change, there is nothing wrong with using the appropriate medical terminology to describe this flu.


44 posted on 06/12/2009 10:51:00 AM PDT by ga medic
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 43 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet; GodGunsGuts
"WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan met with flu experts at 6 a.m. ET today in Geneva to discuss the spread of the novel virus"

The word "novel" means new; meaning that a new virus species has evolved.

The Financial times ... at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f0fba872-5685-11de-9a1c-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1 ... puts it this way ...

"By the agency’s own criteria, the conditions to trigger phase 6 had been in place for a number of days: the existence of a new flu virus that was spreading widely between people in two different parts of the world. But officials have been scrambling to manage reactions and to counter panic or over-reaction by both the public, for whom a “pandemic” implies a highly lethal infection, and governments, many of which had been preparing responses to a more severe form of the virus."

The Financial Times goes on to say ..

"By the time the next northern flu season begins towards the end of this year, H1N1 could have further mutated, potentially increasing its severity."

45 posted on 06/12/2009 12:51:33 PM PDT by OldNavyVet (The essence of evil lies in the irrational.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ga medic

My daughter is a nurse at a hospital east of San Francisco Bay Area. The number of H1N1 cases have increased over the past couple of weeks. Because of a significant exposure to the virus, she is now on a course of Tamiflu.

Two deaths recently - pneumonia complications.

It’s not over.


46 posted on 06/13/2009 7:33:01 PM PDT by berkeleybeej
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 44 | View Replies]

To: berkeleybeej

its barely even started. Hope your daughter stays healthy. Tamiflu should do the trick.


47 posted on 06/13/2009 7:38:21 PM PDT by ga medic
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 46 | View Replies]

To: berkeleybeej

Hospital Inundated with Potential Flu Cases Palomar Medical Center sees rush of patients complaining of flu-like symptoms

By R. STICKNEY

Updated 1:42 PM PDT, Thu, Jun 18, 2009
AP

A health worker checks a woman at a health post in Mexico City, April 2009.

So many people have shown up at Palomar Medical Center complaining of flu-like symptoms, that hospital staff has set up a triage outside the main building.

Details Emerge About Swine Flu Victim
Watch Video

We now know more about a young woman who died from complications related to the swine flu.

An unusually high number of patients have arrived to the hospital complaining of flu-like symptoms.

Hospital administrators decided they didn’t want the potential flu patients to mix with the other patients in the emergency room according to hospital spokesperson Andy Hoang.

In the span of 6 hours Wednesday, the hospital treated 80 people in their ER. Sixty of those patients complained of flu-like symptoms. On a normal day, the hospital’s ER treats approximately 160 people. On Wednesday, they saw more than 200 patients.

The triage should be operating after 2 p.m. Thursday.

San Diego County’s first fatality from the swine flu was treated at the hospital late last week.

Adela Chevalier, 20, died Monday after having symptoms for just a few days, according to doctors at Palomar Medical Center.

Chevalier felt ill last Friday and gradually got worse throughout the weekend, doctors said. On Monday, her mother took her to the ER at Palomar Medical Center in Escondido where she had to be put into a wheelchair because she was too weak to walk.

“She had various symptoms, low grade fever, history of cough, severe muscle pains.”said Dr. Don Herip.

About an hour and a half later, preliminary tests showed that Adela had the H1N1 virus. By mid afternoon she was dead.

Chevalier’s death is the seventh swine-flu death in California; 44 people have died around the United States. Most of those victims were less than 50 years of age.

Find this article at:
http://www.nbcsandiego.com/health/tips_info/Hospital-Inundated-with-Potential-Flu-Cases-.html


48 posted on 06/20/2009 4:11:53 AM PDT by Lady GOP
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 46 | View Replies]

To: berkeleybeej

Hospital Erects Triage Tents To Handle Rush of Flu Victims
Thursday, June 18, 2009 Email article | Print article | RSS
Hospital Erects Triage Tents To Handle Rush of Flu Victims

Palomar Hospital is inundated with patients complaining of flu-like symptoms following death of Escondido woman.

The fear and concerns surrounding the swine flu related death of an Escondido woman Monday night is affecting emergency operations at Palomar Hospital. So a triage tent was set up outside of the emergency room entrance of the hospital to accomodate people suffering from flu-like symptoms. In a span of six hours Wednesday night...eighty people came into Palomar Hospital’s emergency room...75-percent of them complaining of flu like symptoms. Hospital spokesman, Andy Hahn, says this severely strains the hospital’s medical resources so they’re taking this extraordinary measure. People will be screened away from the general population of the hospital. Hospital officials say the triage tent will remain up for as long as the demand for medical care from flu like symptoms persists.


49 posted on 06/20/2009 4:12:32 AM PDT by Lady GOP
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 46 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-49 last

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.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson