Mexican flu

[DrS]

Which just emphasises the point made by Jenkins in the Guardian article that people these days have no concept of evaluating relative risk.

There is an interesting if rather basic article on this general issue in the BBC today HERE (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8027074.stm).

[SorryImPsychic]

These puns are offal.

Can Pigs Fly? :-[ Apparently Yes.

[SorryImPsychic]

There is an interesting if rather basic article on this general issue in the BBC today HERE (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8027074.stm).

What's that saying "Lies, and damned statistics"

[DrS]

Quite! ... and now "mixing the frame" too ;)

[lost thought]

Link for a poster, enjoy.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/badastronomy/3489607654/sizes/o/ (http://www.flickr.com/photos/badastronomy/3489607654/sizes/o/)

[SorryImPsychic]

Quite! ... and now "mixing the frame" too ;)

Estate Agents (in Australia they are called Real Estate Agents) have most certainly refined the art of "mixing the frame" O0

[lost thought]

An interesting talk from Laurie Garret on TED well worth the viewing. O0

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/laurie_garrett_on_lessons_from_the_1918_flu.html (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/laurie_garrett_on_lessons_from_the_1918_flu.html)

Laurie Garrett: What can we learn from the 1918 flu pandemic?

In 2007, as the world worried about a possible avian flu epidemic, Laurie Garrett, author of "The Coming Plague," gave this powerful talk to a small TED University audience. Her insights from past pandemics are suddenly more relevant than ever.
Pulitzer winner Laurie Garrett studies global health and disease prevention. Her books include "The Coming Plague" and "Betrayal of Trust," about the crisis in global public health

Tamiflu.. side effects…
Flu like symptoms.
Suicide

[Croydon Bob]

According to the Chief Medical Officer's publication 'Explaining Pandemic Flu' (1 March 2005), which has, within the last couple of days, been taken off the Dept of Health's website:

"Ordinary flu occurs every year during the winter months in the UK. It affects 10-15% of the UK population, causing around 12,000 deaths every year."

[Mulder]

Latest news on swine flu here (http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/511/1).

"The first quick and dirty analysis of Mexico's swine flu outbreak suggests that the H1N1 virus is about as dangerous as the virus behind a 1957 pandemic that killed 2 million people worldwide. But it's not nearly as lethal as the bug that caused the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic."

"The team also showed a strong link between air travel out of Mexico and confirmed cases in other countries (see picture). The case fatality rate--the percentage of infected people who died--was estimated to be 0.4%, with a range between 0.3% and 1.5%."

[Pebble]

Its official; but mild.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8094655.stm

[FarSideOfTheMoon]

I wonder what it would take to start closing borders? A more severe form of the virus?

It's going to spread anyway, but are there advantages to trying to contain it as long as possible?

Probably from a vaccination point of view - a vaccine may be available the longer it can be deferred.

[Trinoc]

I wonder what it would take to start closing borders?
Car? Train? Boat? Plane? Infected person on foot?

[FarSideOfTheMoon]

Car? Train? Boat? Plane? Infected person on foot?

I'm only listening to what the media says could happen!

I'm just worried about getting on my summer hols to Tenerife at the moment. :sunbathing:

[DrS]

So far we've had a handful only of serious alarms, but the tests have all come back negative ... until the other day when the first one was confirmed. It's not in Tenerife, though, but Fuerteventura.

[FarSideOfTheMoon]

It's probably already there but undiagnosed based on what seems to be happening elsewhere.

It's an interesting question as to what measures governments are likely to take against the spread when they are largely going to be ineffective in the medium/long term, weighed up against the costs of interfering with global trade and tourism.

A more deadly strain of the virus would probably alter perspectives pretty quickly but that must be factored into a lot of the plans already I'd expect.

[Croydon Bob]

It's probably already there but undiagnosed based on what seems to be happening elsewhere.

My wife is currently sick with flu-like symptoms. She works in a building in London that has people in it who have been to Mexico within the last month. Nobody has tested her or is intending to do so. It may well not be 'swine' flu, but if it is then there are probably hundreds or thousands of undiagnosed cases in London.

[Graham Lappin]

I wonder what it would take to start closing borders? A more severe form of the virus?

I was in San Diego a few weeks ago and the freeway to the south had signs warning the border with Mexico was closed! I don't know for certain that this was a flu-scare but that was certainly the rumour. Seems odd to me that over 3,000 children are killed by gunfire in the United States every year and yet there is a pandemic scare over a handful of cases of Mexican flu.

[Trinoc]

I'm only listening to what the media says could happen!
Whoops ... I misread that as "crossing borders" ... :sad:

[Pebble]

Thought a little update might be timely:

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/reprint/360/25/2595.pdf


The Signature Features of Influenza Pandemics —
Implications for Policy
Mark A. Miller, M.D., Cecile Viboud, Ph.D., Marta Balinska, Ph.D., and Lone Simonsen, Ph.D.
Related articles, p. 2605 and p. 2616


"Having conducted
archeo-epidemiologic research, we
can clarify certain “signature fea-
tures” of three previous influenza
pandemics — A/H1N1 from 1918
through 1919, A/H2N2 from 1957
through 1963, and A/H3N2 from
1968 through 1970 — that should
inform both national plans for
pandemic preparedness and re-
quired international collaborations.
Past pandemics were charac-
terized by a shift in the virus sub-
type, shifts of the highest death
rates to younger populations, suc-
cessive pandemic waves, higher
transmissibility than that of sea-
sonal influenza, and differences
in impact in different geographic
regions. Although influenza pan-
demics are classically defined by
the first of these features, the
other four characteristics are fre-
quently not considered in re-
sponse plans.
Yet the second feature, the
shift in mortality toward younger
age groups, was the most strik-
ing characteristic of the 20th-cen-
tury pandemics."


"If an effective vaccine had
been available and used even a
year after the emergence of the
A/H3N2 viruses in 1968, most of
the deaths in Europe and Asia
could probably have been pre-
vented."


"Nonmedical interventions —
primarily social distancing —
could be useful in staving off
transmission. Simulation models
suggest that such interventions
would considerably decrease the
incidence of infection only if the
basic reproductive number was
less than 2, a rate that is lower
than that observed in past pan-
demics."


For those interested in the science behind tracking this outbreak:

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/reprint/360/25/2605.pdf