Interesting news story. One to keep your eyes on:

http://uk.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUKN23355101

Seven people have been diagnosed with a strange and unusual new kind of swine flu in California and Texas, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Thursday.

All seven people have recovered but the virus itself is a never-before-seen mixture of viruses typical among pigs, birds and humans, the CDC said.

Well ts god they all recovered but that is quite combination of viruses.

Sounds like an unlikely combo of coincidences. It could happen naturally, don't get me wrong. But the pessimist in me sees words like "engineered", and the sort, in the back of my head. [/tin foil]

this is what happens when evil starts toying with genetic engineering.
I got the cold/flu combo one and it was really annoying.

I can picture the supervillain in his island lair: "Now, Igor, we'll take our revenge on the human race! Unleash the not-deadly flu! Bwahahaha!"

It's a good heads-up, mind, because it shows how flu's good at mutating across species. The reason H5N1 is scary is because it'll probably do this at some time. Thanks for the link.

Is it a "mixture" of several viruses, meaning all the different viruses are present in the patient, or is it a single hybrid of the different viruses?. I'm a little confused on the word "mixture" that they keep using. The distinction is important.

This I am also unsure of. Where's erik when you need him?

Also, has anyone confirmed that the US virus is the same as the one in Mexico?

That's what the BBC is saying. Maybe the two threads could be merged?

Actually, that's a concept in covert biowarefare. Illnesses to cause loss of productivity in an enemy's population.
There was a work of fiction back in the late '70s or early '80s entitles, "The Cool War" by Fredrick Pohl that centered around this concept. I'm not sure which came first with this, the chicken or the egg.

who is erik ?

with the cold/flu one, it was the top part of the cold with the bottom part of the flu,
just like if you cut the 2 viruses apart and pasted them together,
it ended up invading like the cold, but infecting like the flu.
it took all my friends over a month to get over it totally.

so the word "mixture" should mean about the same thing,
it will have traits of all 3 viruses along with at least parts of the DNA from all 3.
I wonder how resistant people are to it and how it acts ?
also I wonder if it is designed to react with a past or future virus.

the worst virus is one that is harmless unless you have had another virus immunity from the past that it reacts with to make it deadly. someone could let go of 2 virus on either side of an area and it would not start killing till it mixed in the middle of the 2 points, and if it had a delay timer built in, then you would have not much chance of stopping it at all.

This swine flu is a subtype of the H1N1 that is "novel" meaning its never been "typed" before. It has genetic material containing pieces of swine flu, "regular" H1N1, and bird flu. Which means that it has "mixed it up" with other influenza virii ... probably over in Asia. Most likely naturally and was transported over via a human or animal carrier (via plane or migratory pattern).

The strain in Mexico is an exact match for the now 8 cases that have been confirmed in the USA. It has been confirmed to be H2H ... meaning that the human cases aren't being caught for pigs. The only familial cluster in the USA is a father/daughter pair. All other confirmed cases are not biologically related to one another.

There is a strain of this in Canada as well. I haven't heard whether they've confirmed the type in Canada is an exact match for the USA and Mexico strain or not.

Hold onto your hats ... the cases that have been confirmed in the USA have not proven fatal. However, several cases of this swine flu have been fatal in Mexico and they involved lower respiratory infections and not just upper respiratory infections like in the USA. Testing is ongoing to see what the differences are.

If the original infection in the USA started about March 22nd and the boy got on a plane. Likely this novel strain of H1N1 is all over by now they just don't subtype flu except in extreme and/or hospitalized cases ... well, normally any way.

One of the symptoms of this swine flu appears to be very red and itchy eyes to go along with your normal flu-like symptoms. There are some reports of this type of illness in NYC. Anecdotally Glenn Beck was in a restaurant the same time George Soros was and he mentioned ... prior to a public release of some of this info ... that Soros looked very ill and had "red monstrous" eyes to go along with whatever he had. [shurg]

The good news that this infection doesn't appear to be terribly fatal so long as you are in reasonable health and have access to good health care. On the other hand, it doesn't take a fatal disease to cause disruptions. They've closed schools and other public functions down in Mexico for a couple of days now and expect them to remain closed a couple of more to try and bring down the rate of spread. Something like that was to hit the USA or Canada and we'd have a mess on our hands. A couple of emergency rooms in the Dallas, TX area (this according to a friend of mine) are already overwhelmed with an unrespiratory illness that's going around. Unknown if the illness in question is related to the swine flu cases that were confirmed in San Antonio or not.

Just keep your eyes open and be aware if there is anything going around in your kids' schools, daycare, extracurricular activities, etc. (including college)

Edited several times because using my dad's keyboard sucks.

More news 61 dead and Mexico is not closing their borders.

(Raptor: LOL at the very thought the US /Mexico border could be closed if both Mexico and the US tried to do so.)

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/ ... 2820090424

I don't know what it is, but this one is giving me the creeps a bit. I'm probably over reacting, but my spider sense is tingling.



Maybe I should just have a cup of tea and wait for this whole thing to blow over.

Im going to be watching this one closely.

CDC states it too late to contain an outbreak in the USA.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/24443479.htm

Raptor + april + virus = Rumor of Negative Event in April 2009

ZOMG!!!!!

I think we may have some new fashions coming soon,
gloves, filter masks and UV wands.
this seems bad, and I don't want to get sick.

Funny you should mention that, the BBC is reporting that all the stores in Mexico City have sold out of face masks.

Yeah TC....feels like the start of some of my favorite movies.

A nurse I know who works at the local children's hospital told me that there was an unidentified flu case there, and there were rumors in the hospital of it being H5N1. This was like, three weeks ago. A case of avian flu in a kid would have made the news, so I'm pretty sure that it wasn't H5N1. The bad part about this is that nurses rarely get to follow the patient's progress throughout their treatment and she didn't ever hear what happened (hopefully the boy lived), but it wouldn't surprise me if this new flu strain was involved somehow.


P.S. I know that presenting this story in this very vague manner makes it seem spurious, but privacy laws limit the amount of detail I am allowed to recount. Don't worry, the deleted detail wouldn't have added any additional useful information. You got the meat of it.

Possible Swine Flu Outbreak At NYC Prep School



http://wcbstv.com/health/swine.flu.nyc.2.994071.html

They did not explain any link why they suspected Swine Flu in this instance. It may just be a panicked reaction.

We all should prep for SIP (Sheltering in Place) ...items for treating the flu should be stocked up on as well...

Think about possibly losing electricity. If enough people are sick or stay home, our services could be affected. One of the things that worries me (it's my job as a Mom, after all...) If we lose power or don't have enough water to flush toilets or do laundry, it makes nursing flu-ish people more difficult. What do you do with vomit, or used tissues or diarrhea if the normal facilities are out of commission? Lots of heavy duty trash bags for wastes...got some masks, sterile gloves, bleach, hand sanitizer, electrolytes, Tylenol, etc? Extra sheets and towels if the sick folks can't keep their food down?

I'm not really trying to be an alarmist, just wanting people to check their preps from this particular perspective...

Thanks for the info,

Leanne

I wouldn't be so sure. I don't usually like to get all tinfoil, but if avian flu did become transmissible between humans, I'm not so sure that we'd all see our governments on TV saying 'yep, it's bird flu, guy and girls'. Maybe I am just very distrusting, but having read books like The Stand and The Death of Grass, my faith that news will be given to the public straight is not strong.

By saying 'this is swine flu', it might be possible to account for the obvious numbers of ill people without causing mass panic. As long as a government thinks it can control the spread of the disease, they'd probably not disclose it's true identity so as to maintain the infrastructure and public order longer. No government wants a national emergency, even if they have plenty of power to deal with one, it's just not good for them from a political point of view ('how could they let this happen'), an economic one and in terms of damage done to international standing.

I might be way off on my ideas and I'm not saying that is what is going on here. All I'm saying is that with these things especially, there is more going on than even the most attentive of Joes like us are able to discover.



I agree. No need to panic, but even if this is turns out to be nothing big, it's a good practice. As for the electricity and other services, I think that a great deal of effort would be made my the government to keep these utilities running. Without water and electricity, things will get chaotic even faster. That said, it is obviously wise to prepare for such contingencies.

I remember that when I was in university dorms a few years ago, some of my friends got really sick with some food poisoning. The day that everyone was sick was also the day that the water was cut off to the whole building for maintenance. I got off lightly, as I have an iron stomach when it comes to bad food, but a lot of my friends had cripplingly bad vomiting and diarrhoea and no means of getting rid of it, cleaning up or even re-hydrating. Not good.

Well, not seen since 1918, anyhow. The way it works, bird flu is typically very lethal in humans, but has a very hard time making the switch to being able to spread human-to-human. Swine flu can make that jump easily, but isn't very lethal because we're used to it doing that. However, bird flu can make the jump to pigs, and then from pigs to humans, which is believed to have happened at Ft. Riley, Ks in 1918. It's also why we've been expecting the next flu pandemic to come from China, where you'll often find pigs, chickens, and a metric fuckload of people all in the same spot.

I'm heading into town for a weekly shop today, but will be adding 100 or so extra pounds of rice, a mess of Ben-friendly canned goods, a crapton of gatorade mix (for post puking/shitting rehydration), a bunch of dog/cat food, more nitrile gloves, and top up my propane tanks (I have 4 in a rotation, but sometimes let a couple get empty before refilling)...

My sister works for the NYC DOH, I'm interested to hear her take on the infection at the school in Queens...

Jamie

ETA: just placed a big order with longlife food depot...