Yup. Confirmed cases in Texas, California and Kansas. Somewhere between 8 - 100 possible cases in NYC that will be confirmed or denied by test results that come in tomorrow.
I think things will not likely be as horrible as they could be, given that they are already going on the vaccine and people in the US are recovering just fine, but it is definitely unnerving. I don't know why people are so shocked that these things spread. I also wonder if it's transmissible by fecal matter (as in pig & chicken manure used on plants that are then consumed by humans).
The big worry seems to be that this will be massive come the next cold-weather flu season around here and they won't be able to have enough vaccine in time.
*nods* Definitely a concern. We should also remember that this is Mexico's 2008 flue season. They didn't get it until March. We may be getting lucky in that we are seeing advance warning.
The lack of sanitary precautions in airports and planes makes it absolutely inevitable that something like this will be exactly as horrible as it can be given the other limiting factors. It really pisses me off. There's nothing so bad that the travel industry can't making immensely worse. (My reference to 'not as horrible as it could be' meaning: if we didn't have all the communications and tests and vaccines, like in 1918.)
There are reports on LJ that Japan is already screening passengers from US and Mexico with infrared and pulling aside those with elevated body temperatures to see if there's risk from this.
Canada is doing screenings as well and is starting to track anything suspicious. Some jackass in the US gov't told the news that the US wasn't going to do screenings b/c it's too late anyway. I hope he loses his job.
It's not transmissible by oral-fecal or digestive routes, only respiratory. Plus properly cooked fowl or pig has been heated to a high enough temperature to kill any virus. The CDC has a website containing info about Swine Flu and the current epidemic. http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/
Good to know. I was curious about that. *nods* I know that a lot of other things have been moving around, especially inside things like green onion and other veggies that are eaten raw.
Yeah, salmonella and E coli are both food borne and there have been some major outbreaks in the past year (jalapenos last summer, peanuts and pistachios recently) but influenza binds to a specific receptor in lung epithelial cells. So eating produce contaminated with fecal matter will give you all sorts of other nasty diseases, but not influenza. =P
I, for one, look forward to depressed pork prices in the near future.
Just like we had with spinach here in NJ. Farmers markets were flooded with the local stuff, cheap, and it still didn't sell all that well. (More for me!)
I wouldn't call Kansas and New York "unrelated", exactly; in both pockets of illness, someone seems to have brought it back from Mexico. Ditto for the London case. California and Texas are both so close to Mexico that local Patient Zero likely came over, gave it to them, and got better without anybody noticing.
Numbers on this are swinging so wildly that we won't know today's butcher's bill until at least tomorrow. That's not a comfort, but it is a reminder to be sensible -- which, admittedly, I'm having a hard time doing. Maybe WHO says it's too late to contain this, but we can clamp the borders down tight (outgoing only) and quarantine the places it's been spotted. That's my knee-jerk panic response. Only time will tell whether it was right.
Now suspected cases in Minnesota & Massachusetts. http://tinyurl.com/dkrxup
What I meant by unrelated was we have multiple entry points/outbreaks in the US, making containment probably impossible. Hopefully the Mexico death rate is just a fluke or related to pollution there.
Unfortunately, H1N1 swine flu is antigenically different than any of the human flu strains used to make the current seasonal flu vaccine. This means that the flu vaccine won't protect you against this swine flu strain. However, the swine flu is sensitive to a few of the antivirals on the market (oseltamavir and zanamivir).
Honestly, the best way to protect yourself at this point is to be sure to wash your hands and avoid contact with sick people.
That's what they were saying on the radio, that it would be months before they could do a vaccine for this one.
Good advice at any time. At least now that I'm working from home, I rarely come in contact with anybody but my husband, and we surely have all each others' germs by now.
That's more or less insane at this stage, but the fact is people are going to flip and do runs on grocery stores. If I were you, I might go do your shop if only to protect yourself from human behavior.
If I can arrange a ride to the store I might (I'm carless). Everything I hear today makes me more and more worried. It seems to be largely affecting the otherwise young and healthy... shades of 1918.
No US deaths yet. The Mexico City deaths my be because of pollution as a contributing factor. It's also possible this won't be a serious global issue until we're back in cold-weather flu season up here, and then it's a race to make enough vaccine.
Some good information, and specifically, some more good information on what to stock so that you can tend to yourself at home and not go out spreading things unless it gets really bad.
We're pretty far away from the action up here but Things Could Change, and unfortunately half my office has had some kind of low-level congestion/headache/malaise recently (including me).
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Bad stuff.
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The lack of sanitary precautions in airports and planes makes it absolutely inevitable that something like this will be exactly as horrible as it can be given the other limiting factors. It really pisses me off. There's nothing so bad that the travel industry can't making immensely worse. (My reference to 'not as horrible as it could be' meaning: if we didn't have all the communications and tests and vaccines, like in 1918.)
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Just like we had with spinach here in NJ. Farmers markets were flooded with the local stuff, cheap, and it still didn't sell all that well. (More for me!)
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Numbers on this are swinging so wildly that we won't know today's butcher's bill until at least tomorrow. That's not a comfort, but it is a reminder to be sensible -- which, admittedly, I'm having a hard time doing. Maybe WHO says it's too late to contain this, but we can clamp the borders down tight (outgoing only) and quarantine the places it's been spotted. That's my knee-jerk panic response. Only time will tell whether it was right.
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http://tinyurl.com/dkrxup
What I meant by unrelated was we have multiple entry points/outbreaks in the US, making containment probably impossible. Hopefully the Mexico death rate is just a fluke or related to pollution there.
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I'll be thinking of y'all.
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Honestly, the best way to protect yourself at this point is to be sure to wash your hands and avoid contact with sick people.
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Good advice at any time. At least now that I'm working from home, I rarely come in contact with anybody but my husband, and we surely have all each others' germs by now.
M-O-O-N, that spells comment thread!
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Re: M-O-O-N, that spells comment thread!
Yikes.
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*barricades herself in the house*
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Re: where in kansas?
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turns us all into zombieswipes everyone out is one of my biggest fearsno subject
We're pretty far away from the action up here but Things Could Change, and unfortunately half my office has had some kind of low-level congestion/headache/malaise recently (including me).
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