[Johnny_C]

ctrl/alt/del, on Aug 8 2009, 07:48 PM, said:

I will defend! I will defend! Grrr!

*cough* Bad Idea, Bad Idea. *cough*

[Sugar_Skull]

*reins in minions protectively, gives cookies*

[Johnny_C]

*looks at his minions who pull out knives*

Never bring a cookie to a knife fight.


I still can't believe people are still talking about the swine flu. I have heard NOTHING in the news, or papers. Maybe its just the whole Canadian "We don't give a shit what's going on in the world" thing hat we're so good at doing. Seriously, you people are the only people I know of still talking about it.

[Sugar_Skull]

*eyes glass 'choc chips' and hard baked cookie edges* Shuriken!

It's because people in and around my area are still coming down with it. One of them's pregnant, but she says she's going ok. There's hand sanitizer on tap in the place where I volunteer, and I'm not feeling so hot lately

[Johnny_C]

I've noticed sanitizer all around suddenly walking around town, in malls, even the bus terminal. Though I can understand the bus terminal, because of all the "undesirables" that lounge about there.

[RazorToTheRosary]

Here, there are NHS Swine Flu pamphlets and adverts everywhere, with big posters in public toilets. It's just not worth it.

[AloneintheDark]

RazorToTheRosary, on Aug 9 2009, 07:09 PM, said:

Here, there are NHS Swine Flu pamphlets and adverts everywhere, with big posters in public toilets. It's just not worth it.

Sometimes they put them into the urinals themselves so you HAVE to see them >.>

Altho I do like when they put something lame in them (back then it used to be Osama) so you can just pee all over it o.0

[RazorToTheRosary]

Haha, good call.
Though the urinal thing, very dirty tactic!! I'd be offended

[Aya McCabre]

Still a bit of a panic here... particlularly round uni and at the doctors and the hospital. One of my friends was at a ball the other night and in the bathrooms they had free condoms and swine flu masks. People were wearing them with their ball dresses...

[RazorToTheRosary]

Sounds almost delightful?

[Johnny_C]

Maybe I should start making my own biological warfare tools. I'm not going to be happy until a 1/4 of the worlds population goes down. I wonder if I could program it to not attack certain genetic material...Like Foxdie from Metal Gear.

[AloneintheDark]

Aya McCabre, on Aug 10 2009, 07:45 AM, said:

Still a bit of a panic here... particlularly round uni and at the doctors and the hospital. One of my friends was at a ball the other night and in the bathrooms they had free condoms and swine flu masks. People were wearing them with their ball dresses...

When else can you wear a condom during a ball... I've heard of afterwards, or in the alleyway, but not while you're in it x.x

[Nemezees]

Down here I hear about it almost every day. Children are about to go back to school after 2+ months holidays and the government has plans for the end of the world... Vaccines are almost ready for a good 2/3 of the population, schools are ready to close their doors, they even recorded something like 500+ hours of courses so that children can study at home.

For the record, they tried to do the same in New Caledonia, and it proved to be so ineffective at stopping the epidemy that they re-opened schools.

[Butterfly]

for starters, Shot guns pwn zombies, yes bring a cookie to a knife fight, just don't fight any diabetics!

We (in cape town SA) had \2 of our schools close cause of swine flu, someone died in stellenbosch (university town in a wine district (yes CT rulz) and cause of a few people catching on schools were closed, I don''t know if I am simply behind but as it happens its secondary infection no actual H2N1 (if that's the correct sequence) that kills you, anyone with a decent immune system and access basic medical care can survive it.

[Heretic]

Butterfly, on 02 September 2009 - 03:18 AM, said:

Shot guns pwn zombies

Don't get me wrong; I'd love to have a shotgun handy during a zombie apocalypse at least as much as the next terror-stricken victim, but the sad truth is a shotgun would be little more than dinner bell. Maybe you take a few down, but every zombie within a 2-mile radius will hear it and come shambling towards the sound. Going old school with edged weapons might be a bit more challenging (I would prefer a good fire ax and maybe a machete), but it would insure that your fight stays manageable.

Quote

I don't know if I am simply behind but as it happens its secondary infection no actual H2N1 (if that's the correct sequence) that kills you, anyone with a decent immune system and access basic medical care can survive it.

While a flu-weakened immune system can open the door to other infections, such as pneumonia, this has not been the only cause of death among those who have contracted this particular influenza virus.

Remember when H1N1 first hit international news with the outbreak in Mexico? Most of those who died there this past spring were younger, healthy people. Ironically, it was their health that killed them. The H1N1 strain of the influenza virus can, in some cases, initiate an immune response called a cytokine storm. Essentially, the body suffers an overreaction of the immune system. The stronger and healthier the immune system, the more severe the effects. This effect was also documented among fatalities attributed to the H5N1 "Bird Flu" strain of the influenza virus.


- Heretic

[Sugar_Skull]

I'm safe... My immune system is shot. I'm still fighting the flu and have lumps in my neck and under my arms.

[druidessofthedark]

There has been 1 confirmed case in my sons school so far. They are treating all cases in the county that I live in as regular flu unless someone is hospitalized. I found out today that there is a para pro that has pneumonia that stayed there at school for a week before she took the time off. I think that is bullshit and it's people like her that make other people sick. Just pisses me off bad. I stress every morning when I drop my son off at school because he gets sick so easily and his little immune system is weak. He also has sever asthma so it doesn't make it any better. I am hoping that he won't get it but from what they are saying in the media, most of this country will be affected by this virus at some point. I have never even had regular flu so I don't know what to expect except what I have read.

[Sugar_Skull]

Don't worry too much Dru. Swine flu's rife in my area, but it's actually turned out to be pretty mild. I've been touching stuff, and going to work, and not wearing a mask. He's young, but despite feeling like shit I'm not seriously ill... and considering the poxy state of my immune system that's reassuring.

(I probably don't have it, but I'm told all the flu cases going round this area are frequently the swine flu, and that different strains of influenza go around all the time.)

[Heretic]

There are hearings going on in Europe right now related to the World Health Organization's handling of the H1N1 outbreak looks as though there are questions coming from some who suspect financial gain to be the major factor behind the WHO's actions (recent earnings reports from pharmaceutical companies who make anti-viral drugs are probably behind some of those questions). The WHO has responded with three main points:

• The response to the appearance and spread of the virus was excellent ("We are under no illusions that this response was the perfect response," said Dr Fukuda, Special Adviser on Pandemic Influenza to the Director-General.
• There was no relationship between the decisions made by the WHO and market pressures related to the producers of and pharmaceutical drug ("...a range of experts - including some in the private sector - had been consulted and there had been safeguards to prevent a conflict of interest....")
• The language used in both the warnings and guidelines issues, as well as the media reporting of this incident, should be reviewed to see if there might be ways to convey information more clearly ("Part of the WHO [internal] review would examine if there was a better way to define outbreaks and severity, Dr Fukuda said")

This last point is one I made several times regarding the outbreak of H1N1. Gleefully reported in every major news outlet by breathless talking heads, the warnings issued by the WHO seemed as though they had come straight out of a Hollywood disaster movie. This led people to first panic in the face of words like "outbreak" and "pandemic", then throw the organization's credibility in the gutter as the expected mountains of corpses failed to appear. As I said before, this was the result of a combination of media overkill a failure of the general public to understand basic medical terminology (although again, the misuse of these and other terms in movies didn't help at all), and the failure by WHO to recognize that their official warnings were worded in ways that would not seem factually accurate to people who did not understand the terminology in the same way they did.

So, in the end, the WHO is saying that they were correct in what they had to say about H1N1. It just so happens that they still don't really see why the general public automatically associated phrases like "pandemic with an unknown mortality rate" with streets littered with the dead and dying.

Here's hoping they find a way to more accurately describe things like this in the future, or we can expect people to completely ignore what they have to say until they start dropping like flies.


- Heretic

[Johnny_C]

Well, people need to make the news sensationalist don't they? No one wants to hear about a farmer who's milking cows. They want to hear "25 dead after gun man storms bank" or "War in middle east has taken a drastic step backward, many feared dead."

Sensationalist Bullshit I say, no declare...

I may read the paper, and watch the news, but I'm very wary of what they are trying to sell. Fear in this case. We should all know the media doesn't give a shit, because the WHO will take the blame. All they care about is that people are tuning in and turning off their brains so they can shovel their BS through their heads.