[JJ]

OK here is my question. FOX news is reporting (cheerfully) that rather than six months, due to new technological breakthroughs the vaccine for swine flu has been developed by Baxter after research for only three months. So if the virus alters, the vaccine wouldn't be any good anyway, would it? (not saying its any good now).

[wisconsin_cur]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JJ', 'S')o if the virus alters, the vaccine wouldn't be any good anyway, would it? (not saying its any good now).

[vaseline2008]

Take heart, the 1918 Flu "only" killed off about 6% of the world's population...I'm sure the Swine Flu won't even kill 1 million people.

[DrBang]

Someone I work with may have it. They will not confirm it saying tests are still coming back. On the other hand, alcohol based hand wash has appeared in every bathroom on site.

We now get regular briefings on what to do and what to look for. Such a beat up. Based on my training in the emergency services the classifications of what we should be doing is far less than what we are doing. What we are doing now comes under the heading of causing fear in public.

[Cid_Yama]

Swine flu mutating

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'G')ermany's federal agency for infectious diseases said on Tuesday there were signs the H1N1 swine flu virus had started to mutate and warned it could spread in the coming months in a more aggressive form.

Experts were concerned about how the flu was developing in Australia and South America, said Joerg Hacker, head of the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases.

"It's possible the virus has mutated. In autumn the mutated form could spread to the northern hemisphere and back to Germany," Hacker told a news conference in Berlin.

The World Health Organization raised swine flu to pandemic status earlier this month.

[eXpat]

Pandemic Might Be as Severe as 1968 Hong Kong Flu
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')June 23 (Bloomberg) -- The pandemic sparked by swine flu may be as severe as the Hong Kong flu of 1968-69 that cost an estimated 0.7 percent of global gross domestic product, according to the World Bank.

The new H1N1 flu strain might reduce second-quarter GDP by as much as 2.2 percent in Mexico if disruptions to businesses, including those in the restaurant, hotel and transportation industries, persist in the Mexico City region, the Washington- based lender said.

Transmission of the bug is likely to accelerate as the flu season begins in the Southern Hemisphere and again when it returns in the Northern Hemisphere, the bank said in a report released yesterday. As many as 1.5 million people die in a normal flu season worldwide, and even a mild new flu might add another 1.4 million deaths, the report said.

“Even if it does not mutate into a more deadly form, a second wave of the flu in low-income countries could have serious consequences -- given poor countries’ limited capacity to monitor and treat an outbreak and the higher incidence of chronic disease within their populations,” the bank said.
...
WHO is watching for any sign the disease is worsening as the germ circulates during the Southern Hemisphere’s flu season, creating opportunities for its genes to mutate or combine with those of other viruses, including the H5N1 bird flu strain that’s lethal in three of every five reported cases.

The new virus, which has genes from strains that have sickened humans, pigs and birds, has caused 231 deaths, Geneva- based WHO said. Almost half of them were in Mexico, where the economic costs of the epidemic have been concentrated, particularly in the nation’s transport industry, according to the World Bank report.

[Consensi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vaseline2008', 'I')'m sure the Swine Flu won't even kill 1 million people.

[mattduke]

Masterful Statecraft. 350000000 for swine flu? That was so last week.

mainstream noos

[rangerone314]

http://health.utah.gov/epi/h1n1flu/sitrep062409.pdf

That might slow down US pop growth for a year

[FireJack]

I just read that there was a 16th death in Canada now. It was quiet for a while but just when the economy is on the verge of collapse here comes something worse.

[jboogy]

Now that's some change I can believe in!

[Cid_Yama]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')wine flu is responsible for about 98 percent of the influenza cases tested in the U.S., overshadowing other strains in a population with little natural resistance to the new virus, a U.S. study found.

“We’re all tightening our belts -- there isn’t anybody that does not anticipate that we’re going to be dealing with this virus in a serious way this fall and winter,” said William Schaffner, an influenza expert at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee, in an interview at the conference.

“So far it doesn’t look like transmission is declining at all,” Lyn Finelli, a flu researcher at the CDC, said today in a presentation.

[Arsenal]

First hand view from Ferfal in Argentina.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he big news here is A flu. It’s just ripping through us, as anyone would have guessed since there just NO government to do anything about it. They just deny, deny and deny.
A-flu has affected swine here in Buenos Aires, and then back to humans, it affected everyone in a meat processing plant.
I’m worried and we’re talking about leaving the country. You visibly see and hear a huge amount of sick people. We try staying home as much as possible, use masks when going outside, use lots of hand sanitizer and shower. Our kids don’t leave the house anymore, my oldest one isn’t going to school (3 weeks now).

[Arsenal]

Oops. Deleted for cross post. Sorry.

[hillsidedigger]

It might slow down growth this year but what about next year? Who say's swine flu won't continue to grow?

[Daniel_Plainview]

What are the odds that, with over 1M cases in the US, the virus will mutate into something more troublesome?

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DoomWarrior', 'W')hat are the odds that, with over 1M cases in the US, the virus will mutate into something more troublesome?

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')wine flu may kiill 45,000 to 900,000 in US

[Shar_Lamagne]

I've noticed that governments are trying to obfuscate the difference between the seasonal flu vaccine and the swine flu vaccine.

The seasonal vaccine, which DOES NOT protect against swine flu is available, but the swine flu vaccine will not be available for another 5 months, too late for us.

And even then with it mutating, it probably won't be effective by the time it arrives.

I know governments need to do their best to maintain order, but lies to the public just to keep them pacified and productive, at the expense of lives is .... sickening.

A girl my age just died here in Perth, so it's hitting a little close to home.

[IslandCrow]

For comparison, the statistically agreed figure is that on average 36 000 people die in the USA of flu every year. So the lower end of the range is not much more than normal (ie fairly mild). The upper end is quite a bit more, but if my memory serves me correctly this is still only a Category 2 severity, so ranging from mild to moderate.

One thing that worries me is normally flu should have died down by now, but this is continuing to circulate, which is similar to what it did in other pandemic years.

Regarding USA population growth: Population 304,5 million, growthrate 0.6% = a population increase of about 1 827 000 every year. The flu would have to be much much more deadly to knock the population of USA back by one year. It might do it for Canada as their growth rate is only half that of the States (ie 0,3% year or about a 99 900 increase in population).

At this stage it does not look like the pandemic will make much of a dent in world population.