H1N1

[Cryss Winters]

How bad do you Actually think it's going to get? Thoughts on it?

We can't call it 'Swine Flu' ? (I just heard that recently)

 

[Yellow]

I don't think the swine flu is anything to become particularly worried about, it is no more dangerous than the good-old-fashioned-flu that rarely kills. I know there was a 'scary' news article in the end of June that was picked up by grunches of US news sources saying that it was far more dangerous to adults than the othe strains of flu. However, their source of information was biased.

The article claimed that like 70% of the poeple who developed pneumonia from N1H1 in Mexico were between the ages of 5-59. This is presented as evidence that the flu is worse for the young and healthy than it is for the rest of the population. They failed to mention that, in Mexico, more than 70% of the populaiton is between the ages of 5 and 59. This informaiton leads one to infer that that the virus affects everyone on a fairly equal basis. In addition, there are assumptions made about the health of these 'younger' people. The research was conducted at the Mexico City Research Institute. The article did not mention the high levels of air pollution in Mexico City. Pollution could certianly be a factor in the development of pneumonia when a person has any type of influenza. Nor did the article mention that younger, healthier people are less likely to visit the doctor until their flu symptoms are moderate to severe. Furthermore, the strain is very similar to the one that went through Europe and the US in the early part of the century, so many older people are less suseptable to it than other strains of flu.

If anything, this little spat of flu is just a reminder to people to see a doctor if their flu symptoms persist rather than being later forced to enter the hospital when the symptoms have escalated.

 

[Inappropriate Behavior]

Just live like a hermit and let the Es get sick and die. :smiley_emoticons_mr

 

[Wacomydikid]

It doesn't seem as dangerous everyone say it is. where I live ( my country just had to precise what I said to make sure no one understood it to be "in my town" or something along those line but now that I think of it this does seem like a unnecessary precision but I want to make sure just because a lot of people misinterpret what I say every day and it is kind of annoying ) only the already ill or pregnant died so the healthy not pregnant men and woman should be alright. So in conclusion I don't care about the swine flu.

I think I might have a slight problem with staying on topic

 

[Vrecknidj]

In the US:

I don't think it'll be much worse than a normal flu. I'd guess maybe we'll see as many as 50,000 deaths (the "regular" flu kills about 35,000 every year).

Dave

 

[fullerene]

My college campus had a lot of swine flu, during our first two weeks here. They had a quarantine place set up and everything.... but then it got so over-flooded that they started asking kids who lived within 150 miles to just go home if they got it.

It's not really a problem at all. Nobody died (minus the body they found at the bottom of the staircase..... but that probably wasn't flu-related ), the people I know who had it are healthy again (like everyone said, no worse than a normal flu), and it didn't spread or anything.

I've heard that it might be "more contagious" than a normal flu, but not more deadly or more dangerous. The danger only lies in it becoming really widespread..... in which case everyone gets sick for a few days, most of them shake it off, and no problem at all. Much of the worry came from a certain flu they had several decades ago (I want to say in the 30s or so? but I'm not sure why I remember that date, and I never even checked up on their information), which spread wildly in the spring, dwindled in the summer, and then proceeded to kill off lots of people in the fall. Swine flu seemed to show similar patterns, so people worried a bit. Now that it doesn't look like it's gonna cause any major problems, I think people are chilling out a bit.

 

[Felan]

A former colleague of mine lost her daughter to H1N1.

As I understood it the concern is that it arrived so late in the season that it didn't really have much of a chance to do its thing. So this time around we will feel its full. I do hope it goes away, rather than staying on the list of seasonal woes.

What fun it would be to have the cold, the human flu, and swine flu. Just need to add avian flu to the list and we can really have a party! I wonder if there is a limit to how many of these viruses can be floating around waiting to pounce on us?

 

[Invoke Ninja's True Power]

Just another thing to get people all worried and fearful. The latest in the fear-mongerers' arsenal.

 

[uth]

I don't think it's really a big deal. From what I understand, the alarm over it came about b/c of the number of people in Mexico who died from it. But it might just be that Mexico hasn't fully tracked the number of non-lethal cases.

 

[bdubs]

I was under the impression that the media thought this strain of H1N1 was exhibiting propagation patterns reminiscent of the spanish flu. That and the fact that both swine flu and spanish flu were of the H1N1 strain has caused the media to freak. However, the modern strain of H1N1 does not normally target the lower respiratory system or cause an overreation of the body's immune system like the spanish flu. This means that swine flu is not even close to as deadly as spanish flu.

 

[Oblivious]

Common flu in Singapore at least has been killing more people than Swine flu.

 

[Deleted member 1424]

There have quite a few cases on my campus. My mother has also been really sick. She has all the symptoms of the h1n1, but it seems no different than a regular flu.

 

[walfin]

Common flu in Singapore at least has been killing more people than Swine flu.

The haze is probably a more serious problem in Singapore than swine flu; panic over the latter seems to have subsided (if there was any in the first place).

 

[Yellow]

My husband and I are supposedly experienceing H1N1 right now (I knew it was going to happen, with my husband working at the school). It's not a big deal. It feels just like the regular flu but with more phases. First came the headache, sore throat and coughing, then the fever and the aches, then (I seem to be skipping this, thank smeg) the stomach symptoms, now in my 6th and his 8th day, we both have the sneezing, runny nose, sore throat, and aches, but less cough and no fever (mine went away last night). Neither of our fevers went over 103, and of the 11 kids, and 2 other teachers from the school that have gotten it as well, no one has been hospitalized. Its not the worst flu I've had, just very drawn out.
Edit: Make that 28 kids.

 

[Oblivious]

I recovered from a flu a week or so ago. It might have been swine flu but I'll never know since I did not see a doctor.