No U.S. Emergency Rooms to parasitize.
Could be an ironic situation that the Mexicans are acclimated to more bugs e.g. their immunity to Montezuma’s Revenge. Some viruses will provoke cytokine storms in particularly robust immune systems.
Nah, too obvious...
Well that is shocking.
We’ve had seven confirmed cases in US and supposedly a 7% mortality rate in Mexico.
Statistically, you’d need 14 cases here before you’d expect a death.
That’s not exactly how the math works, but the point is we still have too small a sample to decide the US version is less lethal.
Why would anyone ask such an incredibly stupid question? Only if the reverse were true would it be a question worth pondering.
Just guessing here but if they died of severe pneumonia, isn’t that a reflection of the sanitary conditions inside hospitals? I once read that pneumonia is the biggest killer in hospitals where the infection that killed patients wasn’t from the original diagnosis and the reason was lack of proper sanitation.
Warning: I’m not a doctor or even associated with medicine in any way but I did stay at a HIE last night.
Be coz we’re gooder!
Mexico has socialized medicine?
Because the medical system in Mexico, well.... sucks.
Obviously the flu is made more severe by rolling r’s ...
no vaccines of any kind
seal the southern borders and deport illegal aliens:
reduce swine flu threat
reduce unemployment
reduce health costs
reduce education expenses
reduce government services
reduce crime
so, why not???
Based on what I know of the 1918 pandemic, I can think of several reasons:
1. Mexico City is much more crowded that US cities — even cities like New York City. More people closer together equals greater numbers exposed.
2. Personal distance in the US is wider than in Mexico (or virtually anywhere else in the world). The closer you are to someone, the greater the chances to get exposed.
3. I would bet that more Mexicans (even in Mexico City) live in closer proximity to more animals than in the US. Flu gets really deadly if it moves from one species to another. (This is one reason why so many influenzas come out of China — people living very close to poultry.
4. Influenza viruses love to swap. When two different strains meet in one body they trade bits of RNA. This creates a new type of influenza, which immune systems may not recognize. The result is deadly. (Note that 1, 2, and 3 give greater opportunities for this to occur.)
5. The average age in Mexico is lower than in the US. One of the reasons that influenzas get really deadly is when they trigger an overreaction by the immune system. Call it the “burn down the village to save it” syndrome. People literally drown in the products of their immune system going crazy. This overreaction typically happens in the healthiest people — young, healthy adults ages 20-45.
Note that this is not really a matter of health-care system, because for the most part, influenza is a battle between your immune system and the virus. There is no real cure, and most medicine (except for tammiflu) are ineffective against influenza viruses. Yeah, major hospitals help, but in an epidemic, you don’t have enough beds to provide really dramatic intervention in most of the cases. Being well-nourished helps, but only if you do not get some influenza that triggers an overreaction.
Stock up on bottled water, get tammiflu at the first sign of the flu, and hope you get lucky enough to be relatively immune or miss it completely.
Why?
Socialized medicine and fecal matter in the air.
Let’s pray that Americans are paying attention....(before Obama and the democrats nationalize our health care in America)!
We do not have a big enough sample of flu victims here to know the death rate. For a death rate of 5 percent you would have to have 20 victims for one death..we have fewer.
I say baloney.
This is about government “bailout” dollars.
Nothing more.
Maybe, 30 years ago many Americans got a swine flu vaccine that has made antibodies that are better able to attack the new variant.