Actual headline- Swine flu pandemics ot the past


I think we are screwed if pandemics go into overtime!

It's a shame we live in such a PC world that we can't even associate a pandemic with a location anymore.

- The 1968 Hong Kong flu:

I can't figure out why, but that cracked me the fark up.

Scruffinator: - The 1968 Hong Kong flu:

I can't figure out why, but that cracked me the fark up.

Reminded you of this maybe?

Hong Kong Fooey (new window)

I don't think the swine flu deserves to sit on that list just yet. Millions of deaths vs 144?

The news stations wandered off somewhere to report other things. Hence why the appearance of articles talking about deadly Pandemics gone by.

Pattuq: I don't think the swine flu deserves to sit on that list just yet. Millions of deaths vs 144?

I think it's because of the quick propagation.

/I still haven't bought the insanity and fever abilities
//Good thing Madagascar hasn't closed the ports yet

My wife was in the hospital for most of the week with Swine Flu (we were not told that was what it was until she was released). My son at the same time was at home from school for the week, just sleeping. It took major effort to get him to have fluids. If this was the mild version, the fall more dangerous version scares me to death.

From 20 million deaths to 2 million to 1 million to 144, world wide?!?!?


Wow.
They don't make pandemics like they did when I
was a kid.

Call me after the first million...



/that or I get the damn thing

And these are the memories that make me a healthy soul...

Meh. I spent a lot of time studying Medieval history. Until they start stacking up bodies 3 deep in trenches, wages start tripling as key industries are trying to attract employees that aren't about to drop dead in the next week, and entire rural villages (or given the modern era, whole 'burbs) don't basically disappear and houses on the market have "go ahead, move in, just get rid of the bodies" written over the "For Sale" sign, as far as I'm concerned, it's no pandemic- what you've got is a nasty bout of the sniffles.

I am disappointed that we have not yet had a panda pandemic. It just rolls off the tongue.

Pattuq: I don't think the swine flu deserves to sit on that list just yet. Millions of deaths vs 144?

I see you're one of those people who think a pandemic has to kill millions failing to realize that the field of medicine has greatly improved over the last 100 years.

But fear not, these pandemic flu's seem to last a few years so there's still time.

The truth is that H1N1 swine flu is just a warm-up drill for the big one, avian flu, that is still building up.

The highest mortality for swine flu in the US would be about 100k. In a normal flu season, about 36k die. But if and when the avian flu emerges, the US could be looking at 30 Million dead. Or about 1 in 10 Americans. And the US would do a hell of a lot better than the rest of the world, that might have 1 Billion dead total.

It is a class of plague beyond anything humanity has ever experienced, deadlier by far than the black plague of the 14th and 17th Centuries. Right now, it has three major clades, or sub-groups. The first is in China, where it is continuing to expand the geographic range where it is endemic, permanent. They are getting individual and isolated outbreaks hundreds of miles apart, with no known connection.

Another clade is in Egypt, where for the first time the disease has lost some lethality, and is spreading mostly among young children. This is very dangerous, because those children afford the disease an opportunity to mix with human influenza strains, and learn how to be easily transmitted between humans. One it figures this out, it can regain its lethality as a human epidemic.

One of the reasons that it is so deadly, killing about 60% of people who are infected, is because it causes an overreaction of the immune system, called the "cytokine storm" effect, where the body produces large amounts of some 150 different chemicals and specialized immune cells, that fight the disease in the lungs and destroy the lungs in the process. Lung damage is so severe that physicians can determine who will live and who will die from a chest X-ray. Most people who develop it are young and healthy, with strong immune systems.

Development of Acute Respiratory Distress (ARD) happens about on the fifth day of the disease, and typically has a 50% mortality rate on its own. A person who develops ARD has to have use of a hospital ventilator, or they are at risk of oxygen deprivation to their internal organs. Unfortunately, the US has a chronic shortage of ventilators, about 102,000 nationwide.

So a major area of research right now is in finding drugs that can stave off ARD. If this can be done, the death rate from the disease could be slashed.

whammer: The truth is that H1N1 swine flu is just a warm-up drill for the big one, avian flu, that is still building up.

The highest mortality for swine flu in the US would be about 100k. In a normal flu season, about 36k die. But if and when the avian flu emerges, the US could be looking at 30 Million dead. Or about 1 in 10 Americans. And the US would do a hell of a lot better than the rest of the world, that might have 1 Billion dead total.

It is a class of plague beyond anything humanity has ever experienced, deadlier by far than the black plague of the 14th and 17th Centuries. Right now, it has three major clades, or sub-groups. The first is in China, where it is continuing to expand the geographic range where it is endemic, permanent. They are getting individual and isolated outbreaks hundreds of miles apart, with no known connection.

Another clade is in Egypt, where for the first time the disease has lost some lethality, and is spreading mostly among young children. This is very dangerous, because those children afford the disease an opportunity to mix with human influenza strains, and learn how to be easily transmitted between humans. One it figures this out, it can regain its lethality as a human epidemic.

One of the reasons that it is so deadly, killing about 60% of people who are infected, is because it causes an overreaction of the immune system, called the "cytokine storm" effect, where the body produces large amounts of some 150 different chemicals and specialized immune cells, that fight the disease in the lungs and destroy the lungs in the process. Lung damage is so severe that physicians can determine who will live and who will die from a chest X-ray. Most people who develop it are young and healthy, with strong immune systems.

Development of Acute Respiratory Distress (ARD) happens about on the fifth day of the disease, and typically has a 50% mortality rate on its own. A person who develops ARD has to have use of a hospital ventilator, or they are at risk of oxygen deprivation to their internal organs. Unfortunately, the US has a chronic shortage of ventilators, about 102,000 nationwide.

So a major area of research right now is in finding drugs that can stave off ARD. If this can be done, the death rate from the disease could be slashed.

Does this guy know how to party or what?

I'll see your Swine flu, and raise you a Mad Cow.
Retort: I am disappointed that we have not yet had a panda pandemic. It just rolls off the tongue.

Good one Retort, Asian, Hong Kong, I think pandas are secretly to blame.

As someone who is suffering from swine flu, I'm getting a kick out of these replies.

please, please get it right. H1N1.

we wouldn't want to start a scare with terms like "swine flu"

let's at least be scientific about this impending disaster the scale of which cannot be imagined

again my question is how the hell did wbbm780 become the new SbB? why does this get greenlit all the time???

EVERYONE H1N1C!!!

/Not shamelessly stolen from a previous Fark thread, I really am that witty

Stop eating fastfood and get some exercise and you will be flu proof. Maybe stop treating your children like some sterilized piece of lab equipment.

George Carlin said he never got sick because swam in raw sewage growing up.

The 1918 Flu Pandemic was called the "Spanish Flu" NOT because "Spain suffered more" as per the article.

World War I was still on in 1918 and none of the combatant countries reported it. Spain was one of the few neutral countries in the west and as such they had no reason NOT to fully report it.

That led people to believe that Spain is where it started.

Pattuq: I don't think the swine flu deserves to sit on that list just yet. Millions of deaths vs 144?

Hello uninformed

#1- Being called "Pandemic" has NOTHING to do with the amount of deaths involved.

#2- Everything on that page is swine flu.

I mentioned this previously, and folks don't seem to buy it. Re-look at the title of the page, and/or if that's not good enough for you, do some quick research yourself.

Specifically, look at the Spanish flu outbreak of swine flu and how it was mild the first time through, and then when it came back through later, it accounted for 80% of the deaths for World War 1. It couldn't be given to inmate volunteers for testing because they'd caught it the first time around.

hamthrax

cynicalbastard: Meh. I spent a lot of time studying Medieval history. Until they start stacking up bodies 3 deep in trenches, wages start tripling as key industries are trying to attract employees that aren't about to drop dead in the next week, and entire rural villages (or given the modern era, whole 'burbs) don't basically disappear and houses on the market have "go ahead, move in, just get rid of the bodies" written over the "For Sale" sign, as far as I'm concerned, it's no pandemic- what you've got is a nasty bout of the sniffles.

See, people like you are stupid.