Bird Flu....REAL bad news

[telewinz]

All scientists now believe it will mutate.  The government now says it's not a question of if millions will die but How many millions?  In 1918 everyone was exposed and about 50% came down with the flu, more soldiers died from the flu than in battle.  All that being said, what is a person to do? Realistic ideas only please.

[Scott]

Since I live in a suburb of a major city and have a daughter attending public school, I fully expect my family and I will be exposed to any influenza viruses, including any variants of H5N1.  As such, I am trying to make sure my family stays healthy with some simple precautions.

1)  Making sure we eat well, take a multi-vitamin, and get plenty of sleep.   Starting healthy is a good defense.

2)  Using an alcohol-based hand cleanser after using the restroom and after being out in public.  Even have small bottles of the stuff in our vehicles.

3)  Dressing properly for the weather.  Making sure everyone is not too hot or too cool.  Once again, trying to keep the immune system strong by keeping stresses to a minimum.

4)  Laying in larger stocks of food, so we have to venture out less.  In the same vein, getting more books and DVD's to reduce "cabin fever".

5)  Getting flu shots.

6)  I am currently looking at masks.

7)  Getting the house prepared for winter, including getting cleaning supplies.  I also bought oil-filled electric space heaters, so that we can selectively heat part of house.

[TarpleyG]

I believe they will make it out to be worse than it will actually be.  Typical hype--whatever it takes to override our rights, ya know.  I hope I am right and they are just making a mountain out of a molehill.

Greg

[telewinz]

The trick is their guessing what the flu will mutate to, no one in ANY country has immunity.  That's the rub.  The current bird flu strain has been around for about 18 months, an unusually long time for a flu virus.  A successful virus doesn't kill it's host (it dies too) but this strain isn't acting normally.  This is creating no small amount of concern.  If a flu vaccine is developed will they guess the correct mutation and if so can they distribute it rapidly and even manufacture enough?  The "millions of deaths" comment was not world wide but referred to this country alone and our inability to treat such a hugh influx of casualties.

[K Frame]

Of course it will mutate. That's what viri do.

The unknown, though, is will it mutate into something that will kill millions?

Swine flu in 1976 is a great example. When it was first isolated in New Jersey it had all the hallmarks of an absolute killer, with unbelievable transmission/communicability rates. That's what set off the enormous rush to develop the vaccine, which led to all of the problems with people dying. It turns out that the bug, while very communicable, wasn't very lethal at all.

[Paddy]

I don't trust the CDC or the WHO.  Not because I know anything about virology, but because I believe they both have political agendas that may override their stated purposes.

If 'quarantine' is the answer, how about imposing quarantine now, before any 'outbreak'?   Nobody in or out of the U.S. until this is over............

[Dave Markowitz]

7)  Getting the house prepared for winter, including getting cleaning supplies.  I also bought oil-filled electric space heaters, so that we can selectively heat part of house.

Jut FYI, unless your current heating system is really inefficient, you probably won't realize any savings by using the eletric heaters.  We had to use one of these in our den, which is the cold room in the house.  It really jacked our electric bills WAY up during the winter.  We've since replaced the gas fireplace in that room, so I'm hoping that even with the increased price of natural gas this year, our overall utility bills will be lower.

If you can, add insulation and replace any drafty, non-isulated windows.

HTH.

[Scott]

The intent of the electric space heaters is an attempt to satisfy different people's comfort levels as well as to use less natural gas for heating.  Even during the peak of the summer heat, our natural gas bill was higher than our electric power bill.  The cost to heat water and to cook was more than the cost of cooling the house.  Since then, the price per therm of natural gas has increased by 40%.  Based on my analysis, the space heaters, even pulling 10A for twelve hours, pay for themselves in less than three months.

[Guest]

THE most efficient heaters you can get are the propane-powered Catalytic heaters.  The Olympian Wave6 is what I've got in my RV and they're safe for indoor use.  They us a piezoelectric spark ignition so they don't need any electricity to operate.

See also:

http://vagabonders-supreme.net/olympian.htm

http://www.rvsolarelectric.com/heaters.htm

Run a 20ft rubber propane hose to a standard 5gal or more propane tank sitting just outside the house.  Cheapest heating you can do outside of burning scrap wood.

[charby]

I work for a University, lots of people in and out all the time from foreign countries, I always catch whatever bug is floating around. With the bird flu I figure I am healthy, eat well and rest as much as possible, I'll probably get sick, feel like a mule kicked me for a few days and live to tell about it.

Charby

[lee n. field]

Hide out at home, don't go out.  Take your vitamins.  Wear a face mask.  Avoid people.

[stevelyn]

The sky is falling...........................................again.

[MaterDei]

"The government now says it's not a question of if millions will die but How many millions? "

Source???

[Standing Wolf]

I've decided to hurry up and wait and see.

[Sylvilagus Aquaticus]

Most folks during the 1918 pandemic didn't die of influenza, per se.  The young adults and those in their healthiest years were cut down during the convalescent phase by what we now call adult respiratory distress syndrome or ARDS; an overwhelming inflammation  as a result of initial infection caused by the weakend pulmonary system and hyper-permeable cells of the lungs that could not mount a sufficient response to the sepsis , leading to a  secondary pneumonial infection.  In effect, their normal immune system overreacted and killed them.

If modern antibiotics had been readily available, the pandemic would have been a lot more like a bad flu year is normally.

Regards,
Rabbit.

[Stand_watie]

I believe that

a) It will "kill" millions worldwide.

b) They're making a mountain out of molehill from the point of human mortality.

c) National governments have a good economic reason for concern that they are translating into human death concern to try and bolster support for preventative measures.

Most of us on this board, I think, have grown up thinking of the flu as being a mild illness, yet we have something like 50 to 60k annual U.S. flu deaths. The majority of those are elderly and people with already compromised immune systems. I haven't seen any data that indicate that the mortality rate of H5N1 is that much higher in humans than the more common strains of flu.  I think the important distinction here, in terms of government response, is that we are talking about trillions of dollars worth of economic damage from loss of poultry. The American government, and I suspect the governments of most nations that are heavily industrialized, realize that their media are going to sieze upon "bird flu" as a bogeyman that will require widespread destruction of poultry in any area that the virus occurs, causing incredible economic damage. I agree entirely with their end goal, but not particularly with their means of achieving it.

My own personal preventative measures? Get my flu shot (did it today), expose myself to a broad spectrum of people who carry various strains of flu virus to build  my immunity, and thank the good lord that I live in a time period when we already have substantial genetic immunity to various flu viruses, unlike the poor souls of the 1918 epedemic.

[Guest]

The sky is falling...........................................again.

+1

Not enough of the nation lives in Hurricane country, and noone buys terrorist threats outside of New York. They need to have us afraid of SOMETHING.


Seriously though, dont even worry about this supreme court nominee that noone knows a thing about, everything is juuuust fine

[Justin]

Hide out at home, don't go out.  Take your vitamins.  Wear a face mask.  Avoid people.

Well, I for one take comfort in knowing that Michael Jackson will survive the impending pandemic.

[telewinz]

October 11, 2005

Washington: Governments around the world are stockpiling antiviral drugs and some companies are trying to speed up vaccine production, but these measures will do little to counter a flu pandemic, an expert has cautioned. Michael Osterholm, an infectious diseases expert who has been studying the risk of pandemic flu for decades and is a US government adviser, said yesterday governments should be preparing to cope with the pandemic instead of relying on vaccines and drugs to control it. If the H5N1 avian flu began to easily infect humans, it would move too quickly for drugs and vaccines to be of much use. Experts say it is mutating steadily and fear it will eventually acquire the changes it needs to spread easily from person to person. If it does, it will sweep around the world in months or even weeks and could kill millions of people.  

There are two drugs in the class - Roche and Gilead's Tamiflu and GlaxoSmithKline's Relenza. They work to reduce the severity of annual influenza and may prevent infection if used at the right time. Tests suggest they also work against H5N1, but no one knows how well.  The US has enough courses of Tamiflu to treat about 2.3 million people. Another 2 million treatment courses are on order and will arrive by the end of the year.  But about 90 million people would need the drug in the event of a flu pandemic, University of Virginia flu expert Frederick Hayden told a meeting on Saturday.  At current capacity, it would take about 10 years to produce enough Tamiflu to treat 20% of the world's population, Hayden said.  

And vaccines are not an answer yet and will not be for years. There is an experimental vaccine against H5N1 but there are only a few thousand doses of it.  A study published last week showed that the H1N1 virus that caused the 1918 flu pandemic - which killed at least 40 million people globally - was a purely avian virus that acquired a few mutations that gave it the ability to infect people easily. H5N1 is mutating in a similar way and experts believe it is only a matter of time before it, too, infects people easily. - Reuters

[mfree]

Wash hands
Avoid public places as much as possible (i.e. eat at home, avoid movies)
Use a neti pot or saline flush for your nose
Avoid touching your face with your hands
Wash hands
Wash hands
Wash hands

If you do get ill, WEAR A MASK, and fer chrissakes stay home.

I also intend to have a little SHTF kit handy as well as a good bit of traditional and nontraditional remedies. Note remedies, not medicines... it's viral, this is, and as such there's not really anything you can do but alleviate the symptoms.

[telewinz]

10/12/05  CDC and local expert's pandemic projections for the State of Ohio:  100,000 hospitalized, 24,000 dead!

[brimic]

1)  Making sure we eat well, take a multi-vitamin, and get plenty of sleep.   Starting healthy is a good defense.

2)  Using an alcohol-based hand cleanser after using the restroom and after being out in public.  Even have small bottles of the stuff in our vehicles.

3)  Dressing properly for the weather.  Making sure everyone is not too hot or too cool.  Once again, trying to keep the immune system strong by keeping stresses to a minimum.

4)  Laying in larger stocks of food, so we have to venture out less.  In the same vein, getting more books and DVD's to reduce "cabin fever".

5)  Getting flu shots.

6)  I am currently looking at masks.

7)  Getting the house prepared for winter, including getting cleaning supplies.  I also bought oil-filled electric space heaters, so that we can selectively heat part of house.

If you follow the sound advice of not living with live chickens and ducks in your home the first 7 become less important.

[Scott]

If you follow the sound advice of not living with live chickens and ducks in your home the first 7 become less important.

My wife is a USDA Deputy Inspector dealing with poultry.  So while it is not living with live chickens, it is darn close.

[Art Eatman]

The CDC view, for now, is that if the virus mutates as MIGHT happen, and the pandemic spreads (air travel, nowadays, is a major problem), the US death toll could be 1.9 million.

To assess personal risk, look at the demographics of past flu events as to age and socioeconomic group.

Art

[Harold Tuttle]

http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0510/feature1/index.html