Posted on 05/03/2009 5:12:16 AM PDT by truthandlife
When the World Health Organization raised its swine flu threat level last week to suggest the first pandemic in more than four decades was imminent, the group’s director warned that “all of humanity is under threat.”
Across the country, it’s looked like that. School closings will keep more than 300,000 Texas students at home this week. Stores have sold out of masks that experts don’t recommend. Sports events and concerts have been canceled. Headlines have warned that “Outbreak Threatens Global Recovery.”
By the week’s end, an increasing number of experts were questioning whether it was overreaction.
“I don’t see anything to justify this panic,” said Robert Krug, a flu researcher at the University of Texas in Austin. “From all the evidence, this doesn’t look like a particularly lethal virus. People need a little more perspective.”
The perspective involves the seasonal patterns during which flu thrives and dies off, evidence that this virus lacks the kind of killer molecular features seen in some pandemics, cultural factors that could explain Mexico’s fatalities and the stark contrast between the annual U.S. toll from seasonal influenza and this outbreak’s mild severity.
To be sure, many of those factors were unknown 10 days ago, when concern began. Health authorities then only really knew the outbreak involved a new swine virus, which people presumably had no natural immunity to and which already had made its way into U.S. communities.
Such viruses can be nothing if not unpredictable. The Spanish Flu of 1918 seemed relatively mild when it appeared in the spring, but it went on to infect one-third of the world’s population, killing as many 50 million. In some virulent cases, the afflicted died hours after feeling their first symptom.
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
The bigger threat that we face comes from the B. Hussein Obama Flu that is attacking our freedom and liberty.
Maybe it’s the calm before the storm, as Fox News suggests.
...and what was going on behind the scenes while the msm cleverly kept us distracted?
...We didn’t hear much about the Who What and Why (we know When and Where) of the AIR FORCE 1 FLYOVER OF NYC...still waiting to hear results of Obama’s “investigation” into the matter...since he didn’t know ANYTHING about it when it happened...
Wait a few weeks or a month until the sick and contagious illegals start flowing across the border looking for treatment. And those who are contagious but don’t know it yet.
Sounds like you are looking for a crisis and to be fearful.
"All flu, all the time"...
Yep! The media pukes are about the only “transparent” thing connected to this “administration”.
When pigs fly! (swine flu?)
There are several possibilities here:
People have been around for 10,000+ years. If there was such a thing as a deadly pandemic, we would never have survived this long. All of this is just part of the natural flow of life on Earth.
Thinking it is more like stating the obvious.
Who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky.
But it isn’t too much of a stretch to think that at least a few sick illegals from Mexico have or will make it into our cites and spread the flu.
Especially with all of the incentives for crossing the border and the very lax control of the same. All driven by the desire to be politically correct.
Seems pretty obvious.
If there is an outbreak and it can be traced to an illegal, then there will be heck to pay.
That's been my question all week. I know Sebellius was pushed through as Secretary of HHS. Nobody talked much about the delay of the stress test results. Chrysler bankruptcy and O's excoriation of the hedge funds didn't get too much play. The flyover...who knows what that was about. More of our debt was monetized (the fed bought more treasury bonds), I hardly heard a word about that. Many companies reported earnings for first quarter that were miserable. Unemployment increased, etc. etc. etc. And all we heard was "We're going to die from a pandemic!" when in fact only one child in this country has died, and he was from Mexico and had a pre-existing medical condition to begin with.
>Maybe it’s the calm before the storm, as Fox News suggests...
Yes. The talking heads said that in 1976, as well.
“I am known as a very positive person with a constant smile on my face.”
I think you are being reasonably cautious here. You are right to take the threat seriously. You aren’t panicking and you are rightly skeptical of the media and the Mexican government.
There are also at least a few cases where young healthy people have ended up in ICU, so it clearly has the potential to become very dangerous. I think that most people just don’t understand the flu virus and how it becomes so dangerous. Of course that doesn’t stop them from making judgements such as “this thing is over’. This may end up to be a minor virus, but there is not any way to tell yet. Anyone with a solid understanding of flu viruses and how they mutate, is concerned about the potential this virus has.
I read today that a couple from Spain contracted the virus by being on the plane with a couple returning from Mexico. Clearly this is easily transmitted from human to human. There are also an increasing level of diagnosed cases. I will be carefully watching the progression of this virus, but I haven’t seen anything to indicate that I shouldn’t continue my normal activities so far.
And then there is this. Has the ‘scientific methodology’ been filtered through the political filtration system... According to this, this is NOT new... December 2005 appears to be when it was first identified.
My kid’s schools are cancelled as of this past Friday afternoon. They had a “probable” case in someone who worked for the district and was in the buildings. We should know this evening the results, and if they will open school tommorow. I’m not concerned about it..not until people start dying. But I can’t figure out why all the over precaution unless the gov’t knows things we don’t. Is it just the media pushing the panic.?..they love crisis to report on. Honestly, since my middle schooler is double booked Monday night (baseball game and band concert) I wouldn’t mind a day of school closing..the concert would be cancelled.:)
more interesting flu articles here
http://www.singtomeohmuse.com/viewtopic.php?t=3232&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=705
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