Why the panic over something as trivial as Swine Flu?

Originally posted by Cowgirlstraitup7
The differance is that HIV is a disease that you can live with for a very long time. It is no longer a death sentance, there are treatments and very potentially a cure. This "flu" is killing people within days. Not years, but days and it's new. Not to mention a mutated strain that has the potential to kill thousands if not millions within DAYS. That's my two cents for what it's worth.

Your argument is somewhat flawed.

The 'common' flu in the US kills around 547 people per day, thats based on the CDC figures of 20,000 deaths per year attributed to the 'common' flu. The 'common' flu also kills within a few days, tho recover does take longer. It has been stated that this new flu strain kills healthy adults rather than the young and old making this more 'deadly', but as this is a new strain its too early to make this kind of assumption.

Originally posted by Freelancer
Why the sudden concerns and general sense of panic when something as trivial as Swine Flu starts to hit the headlines? Are people really that uneducated and close-minded to the world they live in?

Lets take a quick look at whats happening around us right now.

AIDS is killing around 3.1 million per year. Source
The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) recorded in 2006 36,828 new cases of AID's for the US alone.
World wide, The Yale AIDS Watch has a figure of 5.1 million new cases of AIDS per year.

People are dying in their millions from AIDS yet life goes on as normal around us.


Lets look at cancer.

According to WHO( World Heath Organisation)

* Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide: it accounted for 7.4 million deaths (around 13% of all deaths) in 2004.
* Lung, stomach, colorectal, liver, and breast cancer cause the most cancer deaths each year.
* The most frequent types of cancer differ between men and women.
* More than 30% of cancer deaths can be prevented.
* Tobacco use is the single most important risk factor for cancer.
* Cancer arises from a change in one single cell. The change may be started by external agents and inherited genetic factors.

So Tobacco use is killing 100'000's of people a year and is still generally sociably acceptable in main-stream society. Do we see people wearing face masks when they pass a group of people smoking?.


For 2005, CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) recorded the following catergories of Deaths in the US

Number of deaths for leading causes of death

* Heart disease: 652,091
* Cancer: 559,312
* Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 143,579
* Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 130,933
* Accidents (unintentional injuries): 117,809
* Diabetes: 75,119
* Alzheimer's disease: 71,599
* Influenza/Pneumonia: 63,001
* Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 43,901
* Septicemia: 34,136

Kinda makes this Swine Flu seem pretty small eh?

There seems to be some similarities between the Spanish flu and this Swine flu. It appears to be attacking young, healty adults with strong immune systems. Also both contain the H1N1 variants.

[edit on 27-4-2009 by aero56]

I honestly don't think people are panicking ENOUGH about the situation. While right now the situation does not look so painstaking, what the real concern is the spread of the disease and how little people are worrying about it at the moment.

It has been confirmed that it is airborne and able to survive for long periods of time on inanimate objects. If the airborne virus isn't enough, think about door knobs, gas pumps, money, food products, and think about how little of time this would take to literally spread to almost all of the population.

The big problem that people don't seem to understand is that most people have an immune system that is able to combat the everyday run of the mill influenza virus. There are lots of cases where healthy people don't even have to see is a doctor and it will take care of itself. Our immune systems do not recognize this virus. There is no defense. If we come in contact with it, there is a 99.9 percent chance that we will acquire it.

Now with that put into perspective, say the virus mutates and none of our medicines are working. Say it already has mutated and they aren't telling us. There is no quarantine zones set up yet either and basically our lives are in the hands of our governments and what they decide to do.



Look at statistics here. A death rate of about 6% to 8% do far. Not so many dead yet. But slap that percentage onto 6-7 billion people? That is 520 MILLION people. Even if only a fourth of the population got it, that is 140 million people dead.

That is like half of the population of the United States, all around you, dead. But it won't be so noticeable in that respect because theoretically it would be widespread. So imagine Istanbul, Berlin, Madrid, Beijing, Los Angeles, London, Mexico City, Hong Kong, Delhi, Moscow, Mexico City, Tokyo, and New York's entire populations dropping dead, and you know the theoretical potential of a disease we are defenseless against.




Things like AIDS and heart disease, they take time. Motor vehicle accidents are sporadic and follow random criteria. This is solid. Worst case scenario, this is what happens and THIS is why people should be afraid.

people keep comparing the swine flue to other illnesses, just what you listed, shows that, you didnt really think into it.

cancer, smoking, and aids, ok?

well cancer, you cannot catch from someone sneezing

smoking, you can breathe (and smoke) in second hand smoke for years, and not die from it

aids, you put on a good quality, non-expired condom, and its fine, also, its NOT AIRBORN!

this flu is something where, someone sneezes 20 feet in front of you, and you walk through not paying attention, and theres a very high chance, youre going to catch it, which makes you sick, and possibly die. also you can infect other people, extremely easy, sneazing on a tissue, then turning a door knob, that a little kid touches later, and you made that kid sick.

i mean come on people, stop comparring it to things that are easily preventable, its getting rediculous

Little lesson from Kuby Immunology textbook and Collapse by Gerard Diamond with a heavy dose of my own thoughts.

The H1N1 that we are seeing may be an antigenic shift combined with the emergence of a previously unseen strain that have mutated into a virulent form.

In 1977, British researchers in Hong Kong mixed H3N2 with H1N1 to give us H3N1 virons. Now, imagine if you will H1N1 merging with H5N1 and say H3N2 then throw in a dash of H?N? and viola, something of a emerging super bug that has never been seen in modern times.

A plague.

A plague emerging from very cradle of Mayan civilization!

Oh and why worry? If this is half as bad as the 1918 flu it will kill 75 million worldwide. Of course, I'm just being an alarmist, nothing to see, go back to American Idol.

Originally posted by Darky6K

Originally posted by raz24400
Also according to some reorts, this is not regular swine flu, but a mutated version, which contains components of avian, H1N1, and swine flu. There was debate in WHO over whether to call this 'swine flu' as it is not.

I heard it was a mutation, but I must have missed the avian and other new components. Sounds like a genetic engineered virus. Damn government.

Good god that was exactly what i was thinking when i read yahoo news a little while ago...

It is new and there is no telling if it m ay top the charts. That is why.

It has been confirmed that it is airborne and able to survive for long periods of time on inanimate objects.

when and where was this confirmed?