Thread: Swine flu.

Originally Posted by tommo

Every flu every year is a pandemic, I don't know why they don't call them pandemics. So maybe they ARE just trying to scare people? lol
I doubt it but it would be because the media brought so much attention they had to do something.

No, that is seasonal epidemics. First when they become pandemics they have a risk of killing a lot of people, which happens around 3 times per hundred years.

That lastest pandemic was in 1968, the "Hong Kong Flu".

i havent read the whole discussion, so sorry if this has already been said.

swine flu has a very high spread rate, that is why everyone is panicking. but im not really panicking, because it is very easily treated, apart from rare cases. infact there is someone critically ill in a hospital near me and he spread it to a doctor, and my mum works there. but there is no chance of her getting it so im not worried about that. nor am i worried about the 3 possible cases of swine flu in my school.

Originally Posted by Specialis Sapientia

No, that is seasonal epidemics. First when they become pandemics they have a risk of killing a lot of people, which happens around 3 times per hundred years.

That lastest pandemic was in 1968, the "Hong Kong Flu".

Ah no.
They only just changed it so it has to have a certain amount of severity as well. Pandemics only just now has been changed to mean that it kills a set number of people. Dunno what that number is.
But maybe seasonal epidemic makes more sense for the normal flu, never heard about that.

The Who is a joke, along with this virus.

Agreed, apparently they haven't changed the qualifications for a pandemic at all now. They just delayed it because they didn't want to create fear. How scientific....

Originally Posted by guerilla

The Who is a joke, along with this virus.

What is wrong with your brain?

Seriously, just read up about epidemiology, the WHO, and in particular the spread of the Spanish flu of 1918, before attempting to speak with any authority about your mad conspiracy theories.

Anybody who thinks that infectious disease is not an extremely important problem for the human race has been, I'm afraid, completely nullified into a mindset of false security by modern society. Which is kind of ironic considering that's the exact opposite of what you preach.

Agreed, apparently they haven't changed the qualifications for a pandemic at all now. They just delayed it because they didn't want to create fear. How scientific....

A second ago spreading fear was a bad thing. How consistent.

The WHO acts in a way that will minimise any damage of any infectious disease, and so communicating with the press in a calm and controlled manner is very high up their list of priorities.

It's actually completely consistent. You're just looking at it the wrong way. Surface details.

I was saying before that the MEDIA was spreading fear. They weren't being scientific, we didn't know anything about this virus then. They were acting like the world was going to end.
Then we learned a bit more and we know it's highly contagious, but very non-lethal. And the WHO decide to delay calling it a pandemic just to stop fear.

Spreading fear is a bad thing. I never said it wasn't. But spreading fear isn't always a result of bringing people's attention to the issue. The media makes it that way. Yet the who compromised science (telling people it's a pandemic) simply to delay fear.

...


Guys, get with the program.

Swine flu is soo two months ago.

Swine flu is a danger because it kills (untreated, i think) 0.1% of it's carriers. That doesn't really seem so bad, but it's main victims are the young and healthy, as opposed to the old and frail of regular flu. At the moment we have a treatment for it, but if it mutates to be resistant to our treatments and/or more viral, it could be very bad. I don't want to know what eliminating one thousandth of the working population of the world will do.