H1N1, Over reacting or not does not matter

[Aqua Pro Builder]

The diease is still spreading, so I just want to remind everyone to be careful.

SATURDAY, May 9 (HealthDay News) -- The swine flu count in the United States now stands at 2,254 confirmed cases and 722 probable cases in 44 states, with 104 hospitalizations, federal health officials said Saturday.


Meanwhile as population of crows are now obvious in Flushing area and no more new human cases of West Nile has been reported since 2007, the threat of this virus is now low. However, nyc mosquitoes, are still found to have the virus. So once again please be careful for thoese with babies going outdoor. I am mosquitoes magent, so I am very sensitive to this issue.

 

[jejton]

Just to put things in perspective - 36,000 people die each year from the flu in the US. Most of them are old, very young and/or immunocompromised. Get your flu shots every year!

We recently had a discussion about swine flu in one my classes. I asked the doctor about his opinion as to the seriousness that its being treated with and he said that part of the problem is that most people are unaware of the above fact so they dont have perspective. Then you have the issue with the media always scaring people about anything they can. It turns out that there is also a major difference in flu reporting between the US and Mexico. In the US, all cases of actual flu ( not necessarily what we call a stomach flu - which is not the flue - but real respiratory virus flu ) are reportable to the CDC, which means if you come into an ER or your private doctor's office with a confirmed flu then it is reported to the CDC. That allows them to track flu outbreaks and efficacy of the vaccine among other things. In Mexico, only hospitals have to report flu to their government agency. The people who are admitted to a hospital, anywhere, tend always to be the sickest people. This is more so in many less developed areas as people often try to avoid hospitals for various reasons - cultural, lack of quality in hospitals, etc - so the numbers get skewed. Mexico might be reporting ( just arbitrary number here ) 10,000 cases of swine flue with 300 deaths and that looks like a lot but in reality there mayb be 1,000,000 cases of swine flu with 300 deaths. That makes the mortality rate MUCH lower. Which is what you see you in the US. Combine that with lower standards of healthcare, nutrition, etc and you will get higher mortality rates.

 

[bigyankfan]

H1N1 = Y2K - the media overhypes everything for ratings and profit. There have been two deaths in the US (one was visiting from Mexico) in a country of 260 million. The problem here is that when a REAL emergency arises, the public will not give it the attention it does - see Chicken Little. Excuse me for now, I have to change my breathing mask and go buy another case of Purell.

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

Just to put things in perspective - 36,000 people die each year from the flu in the US. Most of them are old, very young and/or immunocompromised. Get your flu shots every year!

I think your quotation of the above actually throws it off the prospective because the number given are the standard seasonal thru which we have vaccine and ther treatments understood. We have no vaccine for the H1N1 yet. The seasonal flu as stated kills very young and very old people mostly with other medical conditions. However, H1N1 kills young people and middle age people which are generally capable of healing from flu. Even though both are flu but work quite differently, so the ratio of that has no meaning in determining the danger level of this H1N1. The danger level should accessed base on H1N1 itself such as how it is transmitted, how long it can stay surviving in the open, what's the chance of it mutating... Some British medical authorities said, H1N1 can stay 72 hours which is by all means a lot longer than the regular seasonal fl. Of course, the actual viability of the virus need more time to understand and verify. Most people die from seasonal flu are due to their other medical conditions unlike this H1N1 which kills healthy person whose body seems over reacting to the virus as most death are due to drowning their own lungs. This is not too common in other flu. Some hypothesis is that more healthy persons may be more susceptible to it.

All in all, I cannot say it's very dangerous or not but at least I know it different enough from the other flu that we need more attention to prepare for the worst.

 

[jejton]

Wingo - I was just trying to put things into perspective. People got all worked up over swine flu when there are much more mundane things killing far more people.

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

Wingo - I was just trying to put things into perspective. People got all worked up over swine flu when there are much more mundane things killing far more people.

So true and totally agreed.