Hatchoink!

[Markus]

Hi folks,

apparently the swine flu is a media topic in several of our countries, so why not have our own thread about it? How's the situation in your country? How do you feel and what do you think about the new flu? Are you satisfied with the response of your government or is something upsetting you?

Cheers!

Markus

[Luth]

Well, it's too early (in the morning) to write a long post, but I'll summarize some of my points of view: in my country there is the flu, of course, and it's said that the new one has replaced the traditional one, as expected. In fact, it has already happened along the history: a new, mutant type of flu substitutes the previous one... there's nothing strange about it. In our country, next Monday there will be the first vaccines ready for some people first (pregnant, for instance), and later for more people... not everybody, but a significant part of the population.

Well, that's the situation. What I think is: what the great thing is, if it has already been stated that this flu is even less dangerous than the previous one??? Yes, unluckily people dies, but it did in bigger number with the old, dissappeared virus. The temperature is higher now, but it lasts less time: the old flue could last two weeks, this one "only" one week. Some apparently young and healthy people had had complications now and even had died... but didn't it happened with the old flu, without all the media messing about it? Well, Spanish speakers perhaps had seen a video about it... I usually take this type of media very carefully, but I think that video has a lot of reason: it says it all (or almost all) is about drug industry and money... It already happened with the "chicken flu" (I don't know what name had it in English). In US it was said that the chicken flu could kill some million of people, and Tamiflu was sold all around the country. Absolutely nobody died... Who is one of the owners of the Tamiflu drug industry? Donald Rumsfeld... I suppose you already know he was very important in the government... And, with all the hurry to make that vaccine (and make loads of money with it), some steps has not been forgotten, but speeded too much. With the chichen flu a lot of people suffered sever (and long-life) health problems because of that. Why not to think it can happen again? (I know I don't want to get the vaccine... I prefer to be infected, in fact!)

Well, to sum all it up: I believe the flu is important, as important than the last one. If you get it, go home, rest a lot, drink a lot of liquid, and don't panic!! Your body will be ready to expel next flu virus if it tries to infect you again... But, as it even happens, it will mutate and you'll get ill again, as it happened since the beginning of times.

So, Siren, I do believe you must not be worry so much, really... I'm not sure I've been as clear as I wanted, but I tried. A last thing is that, at least in Spain, it has been said that masks are not proven to offer any real protection, so another thing to worry not!!  

PS. You can believe or not believe the media, the official one or the extra-official one. But what it has really been said by the health autorities lately, at least in Spain, is that they thought the flu was going to be worst than it really is now, and they recognized too much alarmism.

[Markus]

Hey folks,

first of all: I'm not worried anymore, either, because the swine flu has turned out to be a rather mild flu so far, less aggressive than the normal seasonal flu.

Siren, I also think that the lack of masks is nothing to be upset about because they don't offer real protection. The Robert-Koch-Institute, a renowned German institute specialised on infective diseases, said that masks are designed to keep infected persons from spreading viruses - not for protecting healthy persons from catching viruses.

I even go so far as to say that we can be glad to have this pandemia! Let me go into detail in order to explain this:

The influenza virus changes very fast. Every year there are new versions of the virus circulating - being immune against an old flu virus doesn't protect against the new ones. And every year the flu is a mass killer, with thousands of deaths per country. Usually the scientists are pretty good in forecasting the versions of the flu virus which will cause the next seasonal wave of the flu, so there is enough time to develop and mass-produce a vaccine against it, so there is a pretty good protection against the seasonal flu.

Swine-flu, however, is different. It's an all new flu, unforeseen, unexpected. When it started to spread there was no vaccine yet, and - don't forget this! - no one knew how aggressive it would be. So they started to develop and produce a vaccine against it under huge time pressure. The vaccines have been tested properly and they are safe - this is known because similar vaccines against other flu viruses had been tested before. The vaccine production and distribution is not going as it should be, the vaccine is too rare in some countries. But luckily the swine flu is not the aggressive flu it could have been, so this failure does not have dramatic consequences yet.

This is why we can call ourselves lucky. Swine-flu is the pandemia of a new influenza - not the first and not the last. Other new flus will follow, and more aggressive forms will be among them. They will spread as easily as the swine-flu, travelling halfway around the globe within hours per plane. The swine-flu is a chance to learn so that the preparations will go faster and be more effective next time.

It is a great hazard, though, in another aspect: Many people will think "much ado about nothing" because this flu turned out to be less aggressive than the seasonal one. They might forget that it was impossible to forecast this and that the only smart decision was to be careful. In consequence they might be too careless next time.

Besides that: I heard that the swine-flu is going especially mild in the USA, thanks to bad old George W.! In his "war against terrorism" he had invested a lot in fast vaccine development and production. Hence it was easy to vaccinate a great part of the US-citizens, and hence there were less infections and easier courses of disease.

Anyway, unless the vaccine will be out by then I'll get vaccinated tomorrow. The stuff is safe, I have a high risk of infection because I work with many people in one room, and I don't want to spread the virus. And of course I'll rather take one day of an aching shoulder than one week of an aching body.

Ha... haaaa... HAAAA-Cheers!

Markus

[The One]

I have two things to say:
The Kuwaitis are going nuts over it. And it is extremely overrated.

[Markus]

Are they, Jorge? What exactly is going on?

Cheers!

Markus

[Luth]

And it is extremely overrated.

For a moment, I've seen Sephren/Ole by here 

[The One]

Well, signs everywhere about what to do, and what not do. Pamphlets on the issue, (some places even FRAMED them) hand sanitizer dispensers installed in every single place, doing all sorts of crazy tests...  It's so overrated. Regular flu kills more people than swine flu.

[saphira]

Tell  the truth, I try to ignore all the news about it.
I don't know how many people are currently sick because of it in Slovenia. I don't know if anyone died here. All I do know is that the damn stupid vaccine is more poisonous than the flu.It has very serious side affects. Even my mum, and she works in hospital said it, and she knows what really kills. Plus the quality of vaccine varies from country to country. But no one admits that..  Plus there are far worse things on this planet than just another flu.
If I compare awareness about it with others I think in Slo we know less about it, or it's just my ignorance. I do agree that while reading online newspapers from other countries it seems to me that people are exaggerating  and consciously  putting pressure on others.
Plus people got so spoiled and sensitive that the slightest change in their lives makes a tragedy. There have been many flu's in the past, sorry, that's how it works. I don't understand why such a panic, while people die every day in big numbers just because of lack of drinking water. Why not panic about them? Oh yes, because our selfish asses are not hurt if they die miles and miles away from us and we just read about it once a month.

Sorry I got a little off topic,but I tried to make my point in few sentences.

PS. I forgot about the masks.. there's no need to wait for someone to give it to you or sell or whatever. The masks that are specially made for agricultures, for those who have vineyards and orchards and have to work with poisonus spreys.  You can buy them, they are not very expensive.

[Persephone]

Hello,

well, I'll add a bit of upsetness into the sack also. It's hardly irritating me. It is absolutely overrated - the medias give bad informations...

As an example? In different news I saw or read (some time ago) that there are almost nearly 1 million people with flu in Ukraine... Can You imagine how much does this scare people? I mean - it's a huge amount.

- when I was searching more - I found out that from the million they for example found FROM ONE THOUSAND PEOPLE ONLY 14 (!!!) really ill by mexican flu. The others had just some normal flu.

So the informations are so misleading!

The problem is that people in my country are like a bunch of hens... And I guess people from abroad must be the same in this.

What's next - have they really forgotten that normal flu might be deadly also? (if not cured soon, right or such...)

And actually nobody still didn't tell - how You can recognize that You have mexican flu... I mean - they say - if You feel like having (some) flu, go to the doctor immediatelly - but in this allover panic - the doctors must be working 24 hours when there comes people hysterical because they sneezed once?

This is stupid.  I don't say that the illness is not dangerous or such - but all this smells like media manipulation.

[Lady Sa'iltu]

Well, as far as i know there're about 1 million and in Russia, but! Our politics differ, they say that this flu is not swine, but if someone goes to private clinics, they make an analysis and everytime find out that the flu is swine!  That was even with my teacher! He was told that it wasn't this swine flu but he felt indeed awful and went to a privat clinic where the situation became clear...
Today have really bad news! My university mate tried this vaccine and now she is absolutely ill, the temperature is about 39 and she can't even stand up!
But anyway devil is not as black as it painted... Every year the flu takes about 500 000 lives all over the world. I don't think that the swine one has already taken a half of that.
But it's really sad that in Russia there aren't enough masks and medicines... As for me, I use self-made masks, because I'm ill without all these flus (swine and not swine) and my immunity is really weak. The masks help if you change them every 2 hours...

Yup, I also try to ignore these stupid news made by mass-media! My mum is a doctor (she doesn't work but she has a lot of mates who work still) and 2 of my friends are doctors, so I try to listen to their news. As for mass-media, they say that in Russia there're about 1000 people infected, but only in our university there about 100 have the swine flu....

[Sirius13]

It's worth understanding the differences between 'normal' & 'swine' flu.

Here's a good report from my preferred scientific publication:
http://www.newscientist.com/special/swine-flu-myths-that-could-endanger-your-life


One reason why all the 'youngsters' ( ) on this forum should not dismiss the hype too readily can be found here:



Death rates may be over-rated, but the demographic is different. 

"Swine flu is killing young people rather than the very elderly, and although winter is just starting, more young people have already died of flu than normally die over the entire winter."

And a mutation to a more lethal version cannot be ruled out.  "No one can be sure how 2009 flu will evolve, but it's certainly not going away."

Anyway, have a read if you like - it's neither alarmist nor over-complacent.  There are also some further reports and info here, including the latest thoughts (12/11/09) that a regular cold may even protect against the swine flu:

http://www.newscientist.com/special/swine-flu

[Lady Sa'iltu]

Well, the picture is strange a bit. I think it can't be 1% for 0-4-year-old children. My mum's worked in a policlinic for 22 years and during this time she faced a lot of deaths of chilren under 5, but she remembers only one girl of 15 who died because of flu.

[Sirius13]

Well, the picture is strange a bit. I think it can't be 1% for 0-4-year-old children. My mum's worked in a policlinic for 22 years and during this time she faced a lot of deaths of chilren under 5, but she remembers only one girl of 15 who died because of flu.

The graph shows only flu deaths - so the 1% is not 1% of all deaths, but 1% of deaths caused by flu (which would be a tiny percentage of overall deaths).  This would entirely fit with what your mum has seen.

The significance is that flu normally mostly kills over 65s (90% of deaths from normal flu are in that age-range as shown on the left), but when H1N1 kills, it kills mostly younger people (graph on right).

[Lady Sa'iltu]

I meant the usual flu was very dangerous for little children. And it must be more than 1% of all deaths caused by influenza. For example, I can imagine 20% of 0-4-year-old children and 70% of old people. It would be more real...

[Lucy]

I'll be vaccinated on Wednesday.
In my country there are contradictory news and information about H1N1, so it was very hard to decide. I think I had two main reasons... I don't want to be ill and stay home, and I don't want to spread illness among my friends and family.

Thank you for the links, Rick!

[Persephone]

There are still now vaccinations available for Czech people :/

[Persephone]

Just checked the news - and for normal people there will be no vaccination against mexican flu. Only for doctors and the hospital personel, politicians and people important for the function of the country.
They say that from the amount of million vaccines will be able to vaccinate about twice more people - but they'll find this out only after one or two months. Which is more than  absurd - the epidemical part is gonna break out here in 2 weeks.

[Markus]

Hey folks,

Rick, thanks a lot for the great link!

Miri, I understand that you're worried. But if there isn't enough vaccine for you to get a dose, then there's not much you can do but wait patiently. Well, of course the vaccination is the best protection, but still you can reduce your risk by careful hygiene and avoiding close contact to people who might be ill. Also remember that although the swine flu is not to be taken lightly, the overall risk of being seriously harmed is still pretty low. So don't worry too much and get a dose as soon as it's available for you.

Cheers!

Markus

[Aluqak]

Heya guys,
Some personal views from ground zero. Yep, now I'm at Mexico city, where it all started and this is what I can see around me:
First of all. People here are very calm, they already now what to do and what not to do. They wash their hands often, and always sneeze into a kleenex that they drop into a trash can.
Here in Mexico, there is no enough vaccine for everyone (as in many countries), but nobody complains... actually anybody is very calm about it. Why? ... because they know that they have a very good diagnosis system, and then if they catch the virus they will know soon enought to take the antiviral and get well.
I personally know four people who have caught the H1N1 thingy, and all of them are alive and kicking. The last one got the virus no later than two weeks ago, he took the antiviral, and last thursday he was working as if anything has happened. I and other people got into contact with him a few days before he got his diagnosis... and none of us got sick. Why? because we all took the neccesary precautions.
So, from this point of view, three things have to be remembered: 1. Stay calm. 2. Know the symptoms, and if you feel that you have got the virus go to the doctor immediately. 3. If you do get the virus, stay home and the take the antivirus the doctor gives you (tamiflu or whatever it is called).... and then you will get well.
Oh! and one last thing for those who think that the vaccine will solve everything: What would happen if the virus mutate as many people fear? .... The vaccine will be useless and we will have to start all over again. BUT! the antiviral will most certainly still kill the new virus as it is doing the current one. Remeber, this thing appeared in the second largest city in world (more than 20 million people) and it killed less than 200 people, and the city got over it without a vaccine.

Cheers and stay calm... and metal

[Lady Sa'iltu]

Just checked the news - and for normal people there will be no vaccination against mexican flu. Only for doctors and the hospital personel, politicians and people important for the function of the country.
They say that from the amount of million vaccines will be able to vaccinate about twice more people - but they'll find this out only after one or two months. Which is more than  absurd - the epidemical part is gonna break out here in 2 weeks.

Don't worry much because of it! Maybe, you're lucky not to get this vaccine. Today in our university the vaccionation's started and several guys have fallen ill and now are in hospitals. I heard someone died after it.