Dark Side of the Poon

I would like to interest WHO in my magic stone that keeps away influenza viruses.

/And tigerses.

I like how people assign the WHO the blame instead of the media for going OMG WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE

Article:
"The WHO declared last month that the swine flu pandemic that started in June 2009 was over, after it killed about 18,600 people worldwide, far less than the worse-case scenarios in which authorities said millions could die."

Wiki:
"Influenza spreads around the world in seasonal epidemics, resulting in the deaths of between 250,000 and 500,000 people every year,[7] up to millions in some pandemic years. On average 41,400 people died each year in the United States between 1979 and 2001 from influenza"

So obviously it was a success right?

TheOther: Dark Side of the Poon

Taint what you think.

akashik: So obviously it was a success right?

Define success.
What are the total number of influenza deaths for the past year? I'm not sure the swine flu had any affect at all on overall numbers.

Swine flu killed 4x as many Americans as 9/11. People who biatch about more people not dying can eat a bowl of dicks.

I knew a healthy 26 yo who died from H1N1. So STFU subby.

novaraz: I knew a healthy 26 yo who died from H1N1. So STFU subby.

Any complicating factors?

Bored Horde: I like how people assign the WHO the blame instead of the media for going OMG WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE

I like how people blame the media for quoting WHO.

cantsleep: akashik: So obviously it was a success right?

Define success.
What are the total number of influenza deaths for the past year? I'm not sure the swine flu had any affect at all on overall numbers.

Exactly. 18000 deaths sounds like a Pandemic until you put it up against regular old flu, which doesn't get any air-time.

Oh wait, no it doesn't. 18000 people dying of anything, worldwide, is small potatoes, and let's face it. The people swine flu was going to kill the most probably never saw that vaccine in the first place.

WON'T GET FOOLED AGAIN! No No No.

novaraz: I knew a healthy 26 yo who died from H1N1. So STFU subby.

That sucks, I am sorry for your loss.

That being said, try to look past your limited personal view and understand this as a worldwide issue. ~18,000 deaths equals a successful prevention of a mass pandemic when the prediction was hundreds of thousands if not millions of deaths.

/not subby

cousin-merle: Swine flu killed 4x as many Americans as 9/11. People who biatch about more people not dying can eat a bowl of dicks.

The last pandemic killed 7,820 people (new window).

~43,000 die from car accidents each year.

Swine flu was overhyped.

Flu Pandemic Song (new window)

I'll just leave this here.

The people swine flu was going to kill would likely have died of any flu.

I for one, will not get fooled again.

As a seriously asthmatic farker, I'm gonna get my shot just as soon as the county clinic has it...

But after thinking about the car wrecks I've had(6 totalled), the pneumonias as a kid, the asthma attacks I refused to go to the ER for, nearly getting run over a couple of times, being thrown from a horse a few times, and a few truly epic bouts of food poisoning, I feel like some sort of left-wing cockroach....

minuslars: The people swine flu was going to kill would likely have died of any flu.

Not true-the scary part is that the swine flu was more likely to cause a really top-notch immune system to go after itself-so your lungs would swell up and you could develop pneumonia(Which is the fun experience of drowning in your own mucus, or at least starting to.)

You know who have really great immune systems? Doctors and nurses-because they get exposed to more diseases than the rest of us.

novaraz: I knew a healthy 26 yo who died from H1N1. So STFU subby.


Evidently not.

Kyle Butler: I for one, will not get fooled again.

you better, you better, you bet.

\ah-ooo

akashik: cantsleep: akashik: So obviously it was a success right?

Define success.
What are the total number of influenza deaths for the past year? I'm not sure the swine flu had any affect at all on overall numbers.

Exactly. 18000 deaths sounds like a Pandemic until you put it up against regular old flu, which doesn't get any air-time.
.

Pandemic ≠ mass casualties.

Unfortunately most people don't seem to get this through their heads, including heads of states, so the next time there is a pandemic that's actually is a killer many people will die needlessly because they now don't trust WHO because H1N1 low death count and will be slow to respond because they'll wait for the bodies to start piling up to do something.

stazz: Bored Horde: I like how people assign the WHO the blame instead of the media for going OMG WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE

I like how people blame the media for quoting WHO.

THIS

The WHO is the authority... supposedly

Probably about as trustworthy as the IPCC

The Kids are Not Alright

Kyle Butler: I for one, will not get fooled again.

"There's an old saying in Tennessee - I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee...that says, fool me once, shame on...shame on you. Fool me...you can't get fooled again."



YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAH!

akashik: Exactly. 18000 deaths sounds like a Pandemic until you put it up against regular old flu, which doesn't get any air-time.

WHO defines "pandemic" according to a virus's global spread, not its kill rate.

The precautions that medical facilities took in infection control was the REASON it wasn't worse off.

Everyone in my facility was (voluntarily) vaccinated, and anyone w/ suspected h1n1 had airborne precautions when dealing w/ the patients.

/it coulda been a lot worse.
//thank a medical worker.

minuslars: The people swine flu was going to kill would likely have died of any flu.

wrong. More people in the 15-35 demographic died than is usual for the "regular" flu.

I see that the ignoramus brigade never takes a day off.

To repeat what others have already explained, in the vain hope that the know-it-alls might accidentally read it this time:

The swine flu is especially dangerous because it kills healthy adults, not just kids and old people. Considering the possible consequences, anyone who thinks they know better than the experts is a first-class douche. And by the pretty colours lighting up my screen, you lot exposed yourselves as massive douches long ago.

Vertdang: The precautions that medical facilities took in infection control was the REASON it wasn't worse off.

Everyone in my facility was (voluntarily) vaccinated, and any patient w/ suspected h1n1 had airborne precautions during contact.

/it coulda been a lot worse.
//thank a medical worker.

Worded poorly. ftfm

Just stop posting links to Fox News content of any kind, please. They aren't funny. They aren't clever. They aren't unusual. They aren't weird. They are predictable. Thank you.

Dubai Vol: I see that the ignoramus brigade never takes a day off.

To repeat what others have already explained, in the vain hope that the know-it-alls might accidentally read it this time:

The swine flu is especially dangerous because it kills healthy adults, not just kids and old people. Considering the possible consequences, anyone who thinks they know better than the experts is a first-class douche. And by the pretty colours lighting up my screen, you lot exposed yourselves as massive douches long ago.

I understand the concern the WHO and the CDC had over it. The media however, overhyped it and caused far more panic than it deserved. The people who needed to know about it, WHO, CDC, other organizations, worked up a vaccine and that was pretty much the end of it.

More people died in Bush's war in Iraq in the same year the Swine Flu outbreak occured, because medical organizations were able to put a stop to it fairly easily. It isn't worth the EVERYBODY PANIC the media gave it.

Remember something else, the right-wing media were already putting feelers out for H1n1 being "Obama's Katrina", there were at least some indications (no doubt, in hindsight, overhyped) that it was more virulent, especially towards populations not usually associated with flu-danger.

In hindsight, I'm sure I could have survived swine flu, but even so I prefer not to be miserable, so I'm glad I got the damn shot (and no, i didn't have to wait 8 hours in line to get it)...

Several co-workers did get H1n1, all pulled through it just fine, but all said it sucked horribly.

Also, while I might be just fine, the poor bastard I inadvertently spread it to might not, I got the damn shot, and will get the next damn shot just as soon as I can...

This headline makes Fark headline approvers look like Palin loving rednecks from Kentucky.

Wasn't Hysteria a Def Leppard album? Honestly WHO, you're better than this.

/Hot like Pyromania

It wasn't a flop derpmitter

The Swine Flu was really, really bad in Mexico City, and we couldn't instantaneously know that the mutation that caused the virus to spread really easily also weakened it a lot.

WHO

Slaxl: Didn't a lot of people get vaccinated against swine flu? I stopped paying attention but I seem to recall vaccinations being rolled out, followed swiftly by controversy when the vaccine killed people. However is it really fair to claim the swine flu outbreak was meagre when wide scale vaccinations were employed?

Regular ol' flu gets vaccines, too. It kills 41k.

heinekenftw: It isn't worth the EVERYBODY PANIC the media gave it.

Read TFT. Hell, read TFHeadline. Douchebags are denigrating CDC and WHO, not the media. And surprise, it's the same douchebags that believe big oil over scientists, bible thumpers over scientists, et cetera.

There's plenty of fail to go around in this situation. The media completely went off the rails with their coverage, to the point where it looked and felt like they were making things up completely. Early on in the "scare" they were reporting Austin, TX as some kind of hot spot. We couldn't figure out what the hell they were talking about. Nobody seemed to know anyone who had gotten sick, or who knew someone who had. A couple of schools closed for a day and then reopened when they realized that nothing was happening. For the most part we were confused by the media's hyperbolic coverage of what appeared to be a complete non-event.

The WHO did what they do, which is to characterize pandemics based on technical metrics of how widespread an outbreak is. The media, for all its faults, pointed this out repeatedly. But people just ran with OMG PANDEMIC. Maybe WHO should have had a more prominent PR strategy.

Lots of people demonstrated a crystal-clear inability to understand probability. Even the media were reporting projected death counts significantly smaller than an average flu. There were plenty of people who were incensed at people who refused to get vaccinated, ignorant know-nothing right-wing conspiracy nuts that they clearly were. I though it was pretty funny ignorance of "science" was so important to them but ignorance of basic statistics and probability was somehow not an issue.

heinekenftw: cousin-merle: Swine flu killed 4x as many Americans as 9/11. People who biatch about more people not dying can eat a bowl of dicks.

The last pandemic killed 7,820 people (new window).

~43,000 die from car accidents each year.

Swine flu was overhyped.

Idiots like you scare the crap out of me.

Let me see if I follow your logic-there was a risk of mutation and unmitigated spread, in which case millions of people would die. But because things did not hit the worst case, due in large part to the medical communities response as well as luck that the virus did not mutate, H1N1 was overhyped. Sorry buddy, I will listen much more to the WHO and the CDC rather than ignorant internet blowhards. People like you who shove their head in the sand and then act all tough guy about it make it harder and harder to mount the correct response to pandemic threats.