While I think it is always I cannot swear to it. It has been the case in each pandemic since 1889. The general principal for seasonal flu certainly is that the strain that was just beginning at the end of one season usually ends up as the main player the next season. That is how the CDC makes its recommendation over which strains to include in the next years vaccine (and one “miss” was a time that they had recognized cases of Fuji coming up late but the manufacturers couldn’t get it to grow in time).
BTW this is a nice concise write-up of possible ways this may play out.
If it fizzles we will never know if the actions taken by the WHO and others helped prevent a catastrophe or not but we know that we’ve at least had a good test of our systems and a good chance to find out what works and what does not. If it doesn’t fizzle then at least these actions have likely slowed it down some and helped us to be more ready when it erupts in the Fall, maybe even slowed it down enough that we will have an effective vaccine ready in time. We know more today than we did a few days ago but we still do not know enough to make good predictions about what will happen from here.
Not responding vigorously would be playing Russian Roulette without even knowing how many chambers are loaded with bullets and how many are empty. Feel free to do that gonz, so long as you only point it your own direction. I’ll keep my gambling to poker nights with my friends.
DSeid, Thanks for the info; I didn’t know that that was what generally happened with flu. Do you think they will offer a vaccine for this flu and also for the seasonal flu in the fall, then? Or will it be combined into one?
I agree with you that the health authorities are absolutely doing the right thing, even if/though it appears that this is not as serious as it might have initially seemed. What do you think of how the media has dealt with this?
I’m not saying this flu is a non-event, but it is making some people crazy. I have a cold right now. It’s definitely not the flu, just your basic rhinovirus, with nasal congestion and a cough. There is no way I’m going to take an entire week or two off work until it goes away. It’s just not possible. I take precautions not to spread it and all that. Yet twice I’ve been accused, by adults, of having the swine flu, and told I should not leave my house until I’m recovered. How ridiculous.
My understanding is that the regular seasonal flu production has gotten the go-ahead to be sure that there is no shortage of that and that as manufacturers complete those production runs they will start up production of H1N1 as a stand-alone additional vaccine.
Another issue is whether some resources should be diverted from season flu vaccine to a pandemic one.
And of course making it is no assurance that it will be used. Many will be like our Gonzo and see no need to take a vaccine, especially a 2 dose one, until they see the pandemic in full bloom, - which is of course what the vaccine would wanting to prevent by being used before then. And the mechanics of administering it are yet to be figured out. Highest priority for the general public good probably should be school aged kids as they spread it the most, but high health risk individuals have a claim to stake on it too. It is a conundrum eh?
I have low expectations of the media so exceeding them isn’t all that hard, but that said I think they’ve not done too badly. You’ve got to remember the media reacts to news of the first 2 inch snowfall in Chicago each year with “Storm crisis alerts!” and gives the anti-vax nutters soapboxes galore. Given that they are in the business of selling eyeballs and ear pans and that fear attracts those almost as much as does sex, they’ve done a decent enough job passing on real information and transmitting the message that there is cause for concern and action but not for panic or hysteria. They could have done much much worse and I am quite frankly surprised that they did not.
Thanks again, DSeid. I’m intellectually able to process how this has all been developing and realise that I shouldn’t be all that concerned, beyond taking precautions such as frequent handwashing at this point. I’m naturally quite an anxious person, though, and every time I read online the new ‘news’ about it I get a big, unpleasant feeling adrenaline rush and start to feel a bit despairing. I have noticed that in the past couple days the reporting has seemed more informative and less hysterical. I suppose I shouldn’t blame the media entirely for my silly feelings!
In my case, just over a week ago (on april 24th to be precise) I got sent home by one of the company’s doctors. I tried to go to work the following monday, only to get sent home again (and told to go see the doctor).
I have had continuous “cold” symptoms, mostly since I started swimming again, so I wasn’t really worried. And so I scheduled an appointment with a doctor, to be able to go to work again. Only… well, she sent me home 'til monday (I described my symptoms and she prescribed medication. She agrees it’s not the flu. But sent me home so I don’t catch it).
And since then the government (which is where I work) decided to suspend activities at least until wednesday…
I blame this, at least in part, on how the term “flu” gets thrown around. People who want martyr points for coming to work when they’re sick (including when they really should be home, not just when it’s a mild cold) claim every cough and sniffle is “the flu”. Hypochondriacs call every cough and sniffle “the flu”. Lazy malingerers say they need to stay home with a little cough and sniffle because “I have the flu”.
I can’t find it now, but there was an article on the BBC’s news website earlier in the week based on an interview with a woman who had come back from vacation in Mexico (I think, I might be remembering wrong) and had what she assumed was the swine flu. She wasn’t tested, because she got sick before the swine flu hit the news, but she thought that’s what she had. She was terribly sick for four or five days before she went to the doctor, who prescribed Tamiflu, and after a few days on Tamiflu she felt better. Sounds like a good candidate for some form of influenza to me. But then she said: “I think swine flu must be very different than normal flu, because I just couldn’t get out of bed.”
Argh. “Just couldn’t get out of bed” is in fact a pretty good measuring stick for determining what’s the flu and what’s just a chesty cold. Yeah, I know, it’s possible to have a milder case of the flu where you just feel like death warmed over for a week or two, but when you’re lying on the couch, freezing to death and burning up at the same time, never sure if you’re asleep or awake, wondering if you’re going to die and wondering if that would be better or worse than living at this point? THAT is when you know you’ve got the flu. I’ve been there twice and that is far, far too often.
And your fault for causing me to consider the economic possibilities of a pandemic. Certainly someone should be out there designing a fashionable alternative to those drab little masks.
This week’s Economist has an analysis of the economic impact of a potential pandemic - and at least agrees that it would be a less severe impact because of the recession.
So indeed less productivity is less of an issue when we have more production capacity than demand already, and demand being low already means we have less far to fall. Probably more than anything else it would prolong a global recession to a greater degree than deepen it.
I just saw it fizzling away. According to Digital that makes me ignorant.
I would not dismiss it. It still could come back. But it probably wont.
The government did not want to step on a New Orleans land mine. Bush did not plan for the worst case and it nearly happened. It brought his planning into question. Obama and his people were not going to let that happen to them. I see why they are being so careful.
Seems to me that you’re actually, gradually, changing your mind.
Like you say, WHO (not necessarily Obama) are planning for the worst case, in case it happens. And taking the necessary reactions. Is it an “over reaction”? Well… by definition, yes, it is. Because they’re planning for the worst case, while hoping it won’t be the worst case. .
Not at all. They have to plan for the worse case. This thing has fizzled away. The political repercussions would have been extreme if they ignored it. That is not a medical emergency. it is a political one.
Worse case scenario. Suppose it percolates into something lethal and sits around watching sports til flu season actually comes. Where does it come from? Does it spontaneously erupt from many places or does it turn ugly in one and spread from there ? What determines where it gets ugly? Since this cute little flu has been in many countries, will it just jump out in Mexico again?
A person who knows a person who knows a person who knows my girlfriend is a confirmed case in Livingston County MI. My girlfriend is pregnant with my baby boy. Gonzomax, where did they shut down those schools in Michigan?
It is said that the Black Death helped end the feudal system by making farm labor a seller’s market. Fewer workers meant the survivors could charge more, and since the lords had lost so many of their enforcers, you could pick up stakes and move to an estate with higher pay and low-deductible medical that let you chose your own barber.
Look, the political action would have been: on one hand I have a potential problem (worst case scenario). But on the other hand I have a definite, current problem (economic shrinking, loss of jobs, etc.). So, a politician’s first action would have been to suppress the problem, hoping it went away by itself. Which is, for instance, what happened a couple of years ago in China.
And … about your hypothetical? For starters: an epidemic like this one doesn’t “go away”. It either disappears because the hosts (that’s us) develop defenses against it or because the hosts change their behavior in a way that makes it difficult for it to propagate.
There’s no question about the “cute little flu” jumping out again. If it spreads enough, fast enough, there’s the possibility, slim though it may be, that during that propagation it will change enough to make its lethality bigger. That is the worst scenario.
Heh. I work in a hospital and our official guidelines say that with regular cold symptoms, we can wear a mask (in addition to taking the regular hygiene precautions) and still interact with patients. Fever and cold symptoms gets you sent home.
You guys went and got all factual and scientific on me. Can I still say I am sick of the media on the whole porquine snuffles thing?
One of my co-workers has twins at the school where the whole SWINE FLU drama started in New Zealand. It is New Zealand’s biggest high school and the kids at the school are feeling the pressure.
The school had three confirmed cases and all the children who went to Mexico were quarrantined butsomehow the hysteria has spread into the community and kids are being avoided n public. Everyone is fine, nobody was even very sick.
Has the media stopped trying to make it into “THE STORY OF THE DECADE” though? NOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
The whole school is feeling the media pressure though no one is sick now.It is all just overkill.