Comment

Comment by truth on August 27, 2009 at 11:55am

PANIC, DONT PANIC, OOOPS OUR BAD! ....

AP -
WASHINGTON – Government health officials are urging people not to panic over estimates of 90,000 people dying from swine flu this fall. "Everything we've seen in the U.S. and everything we've seen around the world suggests we won't see that kind of number if the virus doesn't change," said Dr. Thomas Frieden, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

He made the comment in a C-SPAN interview taped Wednesday.

While the swine flu seems quite easy to catch, it so far hasn't been more deadly than the flu strains seen every fall and winter — many people have only mild illness. And close genetic tracking of the new virus as it circled the globe over the last five months so far has shown no sign that it's mutating to become more virulent.

Still, the CDC has been preparing for a worst-case flu season as a precaution — in July working from an estimate slightly more grim than one that made headlines this week — to make sure that if the virus suddenly worsened or vaccination plans fell through, health authorities would know how to react.

On Monday the White House released a report from a group of presidential advisers that included a scenario where anywhere from 30 percent to half of the population could catch what doctors call the "2009 H1N1" flu, and death possibilities ranged from 30,000 to 90,000. In a regular flu season, up to 20 percent of the population is infected and 36,000 die.

"We don't think that's the most likely scenario," CDC flu specialist Dr. Anne Schuchat said of the presidential advisers' high-end tally.

What's really expected this year? CDC won't speculate, finding a numbers game pointless as it tries to balance getting a largely complacent public to listen to its flu instructions without hyping the threat.

Along with how the virus itself continues to act, the ultimate toll depends on such things as vaccinations beginning as planned — currently set for mid-October — and whether the people who need them most get them. CDC also is working to help hospitals keep the not-so-sick from crowding emergency rooms and to properly target anti-flu drugs to the most vulnerable.

What is likely: A busy flu season that starts earlier than usual, Schuchat told The Associated Press. This new H1N1 strain never went away over the summer, infecting children at summer camps in particular. Already clusters of illnesses are being reported at some schools and colleges around the country.

Comment by truth on August 26, 2009 at 1:02am

AFP

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Swine flu could infect as much as half of the US population this fall and winter and cause up to 90,000 deaths, President Barack Obama’s science advisers warned Monday.

Laying out a “plausible scenario” for the epidemic’s impact in the United States, the report painted a grim picture of stress on the US health care system as it struggles to cope with a flood of flu patients.

The epidemic’s resurgence could “produce infection of 30-50 percent of the US population this fall and winter, with symptoms in approximately 20-40 percent of the population (60-120 million people), more than half of whom would seek medical attention,” the report said.

As many as 1.8 million people could be admitted to hospitals with up to 300,000 of them requiring treatment in intensive care units.

Full article here

Comment by mikextx on August 25, 2009 at 8:40pm

It would be really funny if nobody takes this shot, or very few people do,these people need a good kick in the ass for scaring the ignorant fools who dont read.

Comment by I811st on August 25, 2009 at 7:02pm

how can they forecast these figgaz? To: Everyone here @ 12160, go get a bottle of silver hydrosol. and one of these foam ,Sports fan, mittens!