Mystery Illness Thread (press Conference @ 1pm est.)

15 March 2003 | KickRightRudder

[KickRightRudder]

MSNBC reports mystery illness in Asia-kills every one infected so far. Hundreds more infected. Airlner to Toronto with infected man has been quarentined-- all passengers.

CDC is "EXTREMELY concerned". If these hundreds who are infected die in the next couple of days, we might have the beginnings of a panic. After sophisticated test doctors don't know what it is. Like flu or Pnemonia symptoms, except everybody dies. Press conference at 1pm.

[Milesdavislover]

What ever happened with the children who mysteriously died in the last couple of weeks. Wasn't that similar this illness? The timing is incredibly coincidental to our approaching war with Iraq.

[Domestic Church]

Yes, there have been pediatric deaths in Michigan, Virginia and Texas from an upper respiratory virus that can rapidly develope into pneumonia. What is occurring right now in this mystery illness initially sound similar but there supposedly has been no virus, bacteria or micoplasma identified. Also someone posted that the white and red cell counts are way down in the victims. Given the rapid lethal progression and the 2-7 day incubation, even when the identity of bug is determined it will be difficult to curtail.

[blam]

"I'm sure our military planners are hoping it doesn't spread to Kuwait."

Yup. I was already thinking of the 1918 'Spanish Flu' out break that killed 20-40 million worldwide. It made it's major break-out by travelling with the Doughboys all over the world.

[blam]

"Wouldn't that be a kicker..if all smokers were not infected...rofl."

Coal miners that smoke do not get Black Lung Disease as do other miners.

[blam]

" It has been a long time since the world has seen something like the plague, we should be about due for some new horrible calamity."

I've been expecting a meteorite impact any day now. We're over due for one of those too. (....and I'm not trying to be being 'cute' either.)

[jetson]

Spanish flu? Are you talking about the flu that spread to the US in 1918. I thought they figured it was the swine flu. There were stories of people feeling feverish after getting on the train cars and at the end of the stop there were noting but bodies lying around.

[Boundless]

> Spanish flu?

That's what it misnamed as.

> Are you talking about the flu that spread to the US in 1918.

The very one.

The present threat is almost certainly a different agent.

Time to trade the poly and duct tape for hospitals masks,
or HEPA respirators.

[Judith Anne]

Wonder if a homemade HEPA mask could be made from a vacuum bag?

[NMC EXP]

Very interesting & gets into the exhumation of corpses in Alaska and Norway by two competing scientific teams

Did they isolate the bug?

Regards

J.R.

[NMC EXP]

It will also burn itself out quickly.

In 1918 the Spanish Influenza pandemic killed an estimated 20 to 40 million in one year.

Thats pretty quickly.

Regards

J.R.

[NMC EXP]

"People are not responding to antibiotics or antivirals; it's a highly contagious disease, and it's moving around by jet. It's bad."

...while not calling for restrictions on travel...

Wouldn't want to negatively affect the economy. Just another benefit of globalization and porus borders.

Regards

J.R.

[NMC EXP]

it is a neo-nazi site. Sorry, but all the free-speech good intentions in the world cannot change what is is

OK....I'll go with your line of reasoning.

Therefore, the Jewish population of Skokie are neo-nazi sympathizers.

Regards

J.R.

[CathyRyan]

I was thinking about Ebola when I was talking about burning out quick. Burning out quick is what keeps it from spreading. Probably not a good analogy.

We may be comparing apples and oranges here with today and 1918 since we do not know what this is yet.

As fas as 1918 I think you will find that the "Spanish" flu first showed up the year prior and it did not do the really damage until the second year. I hope we are given a year's lead time again but with so many different factors in play, who knows.

OTOH (If this turns nasty) we now have the ACLU Wussies and the Not In Our Name Nuts to fight quarantines (if they are ordered) so we will probably all end up dead because of them.

Some how I always figured liberalss would be the death of me.

[sirena]

No, in the "Flu" book the best guess is a mutated swine or bird flu. The author has a section on the CDC and the big swine flu flap in the 1970s--how political it got
(the publicity and the $$$ to vaccinate everybody and then no big flu threat) and how that bad experience could be a factor in the future.

[js1138]

In 1918 the Spanish Influenza pandemic killed an estimated 20 to 40 million in one year.

My father, born in 1910, survived that one. A lot of his neighbors didn't. He's 93 now, recovering from a broken hip -- fell while feeding stray cats.

[DBtoo]

Do you remember last summer, when there was a mysterious flu outbreak in Madagascar? Around 23,000 people became ill in a short period of time, and several hundred died. After Aug. 18 though, at the peak of the illness which had only started weeks before, there was a total news blackout. I searched and searched for information on that but nothing was to be found any longer. I thought it was quite strange. Maybe that was a practice run of some kind. And what a better place to carry out something like that than in Madagascar.

[theFIRMbss]

>People are not responding to antibiotics or antivirals; it's a highly contagious disease, and it's moving around ...
>>Wouldn't want to negatively affect the economy. Just another benefit of globalization and porus borders.

If twenty million
people died in the US,
that would be a lot

of job openings.
I bet there are business types
who do think that way...

[OXENinFLA]

If these hundreds who are infected die in the next couple of days, we might have the beginnings of a panic.

Really? ;)

[Cachelot]

OK....I'll go with your line of reasoning.

No, you're not. I didn't say the overwhelming (and silent) majority of registered users on LF were neonazi sympathizers. Most probably they're not, and refuse to have anything to do with the output of the place after having registered there - in fact, as I said, I imagine most of them are not even there anymore.

But you're really sort of comparing apples and oranges. A community (Skokie) is bound by certain rules, so that any Nazi scum that wants to march actually has a right to. A board such as LF is privately owned and doesn't come under any free-speech rules but the owner's. So if the general tone of the place is Nazist, it is really with the approval of the owner. It's like a newspaper - if most of what is printed in there is nazi rants, it's a nazi newspaper and that becomes the editorial line. It also becomes the editorial responsibility (something no publisher can escape by saying he "doesn't want to censor"). And no board owner can run away from the fact that he actually is the publisher of what is on his board, be it calls to exterminate the Jews or a discussion of bunnyrabbits.

More, if the place is used for stuff like planning attacks on Jews, for example, and anything is carried out, the owner is effectively finished legally. And if Graybeard's offer to map Jewish homes for al Quaida hits should come to fruition, I'd imagine that everyone who ever posted on LF would face an interesting time with a lot of pc's being carted away for forensics.

[Cachelot]

Do you remember last summer, when there was a mysterious flu outbreak in Madagascar?

Yes. The WHO actually said they'd identified the flu strain, or rather "a flu strain among the sick people". And then, as you say, it all went away.

Sars seems not to be flu at all, on the other hand...