Swine flu

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A couple of things:

Aldeth's point about the unfortunate Mexican toddler is well taken -- I would say that the media didn't mention that part because it makes for a better sound bite. It is still a horrid tragedy, especially for the family of that toddler.

Next, I get where Ragusa is coming from mocking the Israeli minister, but a friend mentioned something to me that I thought I'd pass along.

What if the flu were named something like "Spic Flu"? We'd be really, really uncomfortable with a name like that. We'd probably want to refer to it as something less offensive to our ears. I see no evidence in that article that the Minister in question or his Ministry is neglecting important medical precautions, or acting as if renaming it "solves the problem" as Ragusa said. Perhaps it is, but the fact that the minister wants to alter how they refer to the disease so as to avoid repeatedly saying something that to their culture is rather in bad taste does not automatically make him an incompetant douchebag.

 

I just saw a report that Egypt has ordered the mass-slaughter of all the pigs in their country. It's something like 300,000 pigs. The ignorance is astounding. Not only are their no reported cases of the swine flu in Egypt, but the transmission here is person-to-person, not pig-to-person. I'm baffled by this.

 

Egyptian politicians aren't terribly well known for their measured, rational, and fact-based approach to governance....

 

Hey, HEY, HEY!

Let my people go ... or let my piggies go ... something like that.

 

I wish the media would give this a rest, "2 new cases in the UK". I wonder how many people catch an already existing strain of influenza every day.

 

They're killing ALL of the pigs? That is disgusting and horrible! 300,000+ pigs for preventative measures against a disease that hasn't reached Egypt and is transmitted between people?! That is horrendous.

 

The 'swine flu' is just water on the mill on the religious nutters down there, Jewish or Muslim. There's the 'swine flu'? Of course they carry diseases - after all they're unclean, as the books say. It is only confirmation that those unclean beats are bad and shouldn't exist. Exterminate all swine - no more 'swine flu'. That's logical. A pity nobody down there will eat all the pork. Which is only for the better, after all swine are unclean. Swine, blame yourself for having meat that turns bad quickly in Middle Eastern climate, and which necessitated religious laws to prevent people from getting harmed by rotten meat.

I think that's a good start. Then there is 'avian flu'. That one's easy too, in order to get rid of that, kill all avians. Some haemorrhagic fevers are endemic in rodents like mice and rats - kill'em all! Now then, there are humans who have the 'swine flu' ... Let me think of a logical solution to that problem ...

Maybe it's the climate and intense sunshine down there that breeds all that outlandish kookery? Geez.

 

And not just if you are a pig (I think it sucks worst for them). There are many people in the more rural areas of Egypt who rely on livestock (including pigs) as their main source of income. They were interviewing one guy who was a pig breeder, and said about half of his family's annual income came from selling the pigs they raised at a price of about $45 each. (The family's annual income was only a few thousand dollars.)

Anyway, while this has been decreed by the government, it will take a really long time to get to all these pigs. In the more rural areas of Egypt, it is likely that most people don't even yet know that it has been ordered. Truly remote people will continue right on raising pigs anyway, as the possibility of them ever being caught is remote indeed.

 

The official name for it is now H1N1 flu.

I think I'll refer to it as "the flu formerly known as Swine"

 

The carnage is also unneccessary, as the Egyptians could have found out by checking the WHO's web site.

To protect pigs from zealous overreactions as in Egypt, the WHO will not refer to the swine flu by that name any longer. At least they're not renaming it.

Maybe that was what the Israeli health minister was up to when he renamed the 'swine flu' into 'Mexican flu'. He wanted to prevent angry Haredi mobs roaming Israel stoning swine, or rather not. Better not tell them this flu has anything to do with swine. No, better not mention swine at all. Better for the economy, the country and the Haredim. And who knows, maybe Haredi doctors would have refused to treat patients, because, you never know, with a disease with an unclean name the patients themselves might be unclean too - yuck- hands off. Just a guess.

 

I just read that as of April 30, 2009, over 13,000 Americans have died this year of the regular vanilla flu that circulates every year. That means we're averaging a little more than 100 deaths per day due to regular flu. As of April 30, 2009, exactly ONE person in the US (who wasn't even a citizen of the US, but was actually a Mexican) has died of the swine flu. I'm having a hard time getting riled up about this disease, although I still feel bad about the Egyptian piggies.

 

I don't know Aldeth. According the the FCC, we've had a grand total of 331 reported H1N1 cases. Sure sounds like an epidemic to me.....

 

I'd rather be too careful, paranoid, and be mistaken about it than be laid back, relaxed, and slapping myself later and saying "gee, I wish I'd been a little more careful -- if I had those tens of thousands of dead people would still be alive."

I know people are too worked up about this just like they were about SARS and like they still are about West Nile virus, but better safe than sorry is my motto.

 

Better safe than sorry is a great motto, as long as it isn't carried to absurd extremes like, say, closing our borders. The H1N1 flu was brought to the US by a group of New York Catholic School Girls that vacationed in Cancun, so beating the illegal immigration drum is stupid at best and dishonest and cynical at worst.

In the last week, the US has had one death to the H1N1 Flu....and the person that died wasn't even American. Extrapolating from our yearly death toll due to the regular flu, the regular flu would have killed 700 Americans in that same week. I'm not arguing that we need not do anything...just that panicking about a pandemic that has only taken a total of 22 lives worldwide is more than a little silly.

 

It seems T3V2 tested positive for the flu -- he's doing great and only is a bit grumpy with a slight fever. But I'll tell you I nearly had heart failure when the doctor walked in after the influenza test, sat on the far side of the room, and started talking about options.

Now everyone in the house is on Tamiflu.

 

Actually, there is no easy test to tell which variation he has -- it's just most likely to be H1N1 because most of the other strains passed through months ago. Even though I believe I'm fairly even headed about these things, it's still difficult to shut out all the poor and alarming journalism which has accompanied this whole strain.

It takes a second for reason to kick in at times (at least it does with me at times -- sometimes it never kicks in).

 

I think anytime a child under a year old gets the flu it certainly is cause for concern. But the hype of swine flu added to the concern initially.

The little guy had very mild symptoms and so I really haven't been too concerned.