November 30, 2004

A global pandemic of Avian Influenza is 'very, very likely' and could kill up to 100 million people, according to the World Heath Organisation, yesterday. Other estimates are less optimistic. Hug, anyone?
  • That, of course, would be the World Health Organisation. I, of course, am an idiot.
  • Worst news ever.
  • Not to play down the significance of the news, but this has been pretty much an annual story from the world of public health for the past five or so years. Although this is specific to the avian influenza, there's always talk around flu season about a pandemic. We're statistically due. I bet somewhere in a Pfizer lab, there's a betting pool on when the pandemic is going to hit...
  • That "Christmas In Hong Kong" trip you've been planning is probably not prudent. Other estimates are less optimistic. True, but others are not nearly so doomsdayish.
  • Tell me, is there something that a person can take to make him feel less helpless and beaten down and pessimistic about the future? Because I think I need some. I've been going back in my mind trying to think of the last time I was really happy and thought the future was bright and could smile at everybody, and it's been a while. (And yes, it was definitely before the election.) Still, getting constantly pelted with stuff like this, which is even worse than a Bush presidency, and feeling utterly powerless and small and doomed in the face of it... I think maybe Voltaire was wrong. Regarding the better choice between happy ignorance and sad knowledge. Me, I'm looking hard at some soma.
  • Tell me, is there something that a person can take to make him feel less helpless and beaten down and pessimistic about the future? A solid belief in karma works for me.
  • Yet another good reason to stay home from work. Yeah!
  • the article says 100 million is the worst case estimate, not the most optimistic one. Chill.
  • I know how you feel, Tenacious, but there has always been flu. The 1918 flu killed 40-100 million, thats out of 1.8 billion. 100 million deaths from a new flu outbreak, while bad, would be less severe (since current world population is 6.4 billion). That's still a hell of a lot of people, but its not new. The political scene in the US isn't that great right now, but its not permanent. Look at Europe 60 years ago and look at it now. A lot can change in just a few years. Yes, things can get worse, but they can also get better. Europe is probably more peaceful now than at any time in history. The conflict in Iraq, bad as it is, has killed thousands of Iraqis and hundreds of Americans, while the Vietnam war killed millions of Vietnamese and tens of thousands of Americans. Think about the status of blacks and women 100 years ago compared to today in the US. Can you really say that things aren't getting better? Can you really say that things used to be better? It's all going to be alright - it really is. Progress marches slowly. Just have faith. And there is this: http://monkeyfilter.com/link.php/6167, which is pretty cool.
  • I remember reading (although not where I read it) that flu vaccines are produced by replicating them in chicken eggs. This works because chicken eggs are (usually) unaffected by mammalian viruses. But avian flu, kind of by definition, would kill the eggs. Unless a new method for producing vaccines is developed we're in trouble.
  • Enh. It'd mostly kill old people, and then I'd still get my social security! GO PANDEMIC!
  • Aren't they actually making a strain of the avian flu virus for humans so that it might "accidentally" get released into the wild. Of course, officially they're trying to come up with a pre-emptive cure but one can always hope.
  • I thought the title of this page was a clever pun, but it looks like some folks actually sing the song that way.
  • That's how I learned it, patita. Ring-a ring-a rosies A pocket full of posies A-tishoo a-tishoo We all fall down.
  • musingmelpomene: Enh. It'd mostly kill old people, and then I'd still get my social security! GO PANDEMIC! Note that the 1918 pandemic killed mostly those between 20 and 40.
  • I think people get a kick of saying things like "catastrophic events" or "100 million dead"... In any case, I'm ready to run to the mountains...
  • TenaciousPettle, I second pikestrider's recommendation for the JPL pictures. Whenever I'm particularly blue, cruising around that site makes me feel better. It's awe-inspiring to realize how small the odds were that got us right here at this moment. Jackie Chan movies help too.
  • I second tracicle's version of the rhyme. That's the exact same version I learned as a child in England. Any other version, therefore, is obviously nothing but a corruption thereof!
  • This is only if, and it's a big if it 'develops the ability to spread easily from person to person' which it can't... right now. So relax.
  • so "ashes, ashes, we all fall down" is not the be-all and end all? horrors! to bring this back on topic, here's a little rhyme for the avian flu: coughing chicken, sneezing duck hong kong's christmas will now suck! dance with turkeys and feel ill avian flu will sure kill. I don't trust your feathered friends they will bring us to bad ends! coughing chicken, sneezing duck this means we will all be fucked.
  • Me, I'm looking hard at some soma. Imagine my surprise when I discovered there really is a drug by that name. Clever marketing.
  • My understanding is that "atchoo, atchoo" referred to the black plague; "pocket full of posies" to herbs carried to ward it off; and "we all fall down" to the effectiveness of same.
  • Friendly Turtle, apparently that's an urban legend. Check out patita's link above to find out more.
  • Tell me, is there something that a person can take to make him feel less helpless and beaten down and pessimistic about the future? *snaps fingers* One Ecstasy Burger for Mr Pettle, with a fresh Cocaine Side Salad, please... Would you like to see the Amyl Nitrate List, sir? I can recommend the '99, sir, an excellent year. *sidles off*
  • Not surprised at the warning, we're overdue for another pandemic. As for it being from birds - some truth to it. Where I am at we've had a severe out break of avian flu and all the chickens have had to be culled (big deal here) but on the other hand we wont know for sure where it will come from in the last pandemic they still don't know the origin of the flu or where it disappeared to afterwards. Personally I hope I have the gene 'delta 27' (researchers studied why some survived the bubonic plague and found they all this these gene in common and recently have discovered people with the gene who have HIV who aren't getting sick from it).
  • I think that the point of the warning is that there should be some planning going on for minimizing the impact or otherwise dealing with it. Yeah, you can say "we're due" forever, but if there are no plans for actually DEALING with such a consequence... I work at a university, but do you think it would make sense to come to work if there was literally a pandemic happening? What can you do to minimize the spread? Well I'm not sure, but I think I would be spreading the word on simple things like this. This is another one of those things that a huge post-mortem will be done on after the fact. Government couldn't be expected to put a huge dent in the Christmas shopping season by spreading any word about preventing a pandemic now, could they?
  • Since evolution theory, which theory encompasses avian flu, is anethema to evangelicals, does this mean they don't believe in new strains of flu? Therefore, they won't be innoculating their children at all? Or maybe there's a loophole commensurate with theology.
  • The creationists make a dubious (but very real to them) distinction between what they call "microevolution" and "macroevolution". They concede that the kind of evolution, "microevoultion", that you see with the evolution of bacteria and other things is real.
  • This house has too many books! Took this long to find this rhyme by an American writer who survived the Spanish influenca back in 1919, Edna Ingold Bost, which I set forth for the historicity of the piece, as it's not one of Bost's better bits. They say the flu is the very worst thing you have ever had, But seems to me the quarantine is not entirely bad. Our family gets acquainted since we have no place to go Adn so I say the quarantine is like "ill winds" that blow. Now father reads his paper and talks to us, of nights, And mother reads and talks and sews or long, long letters writes. Big brother Jim -- away all day -- stays home and plays a game, And sister Jane -- (the movies closed), why she does just the same. No lessons now for me to learn -- the schools are closed up, too -- And so I say it's not so bad, this quarantine for flu. And after a while Jane plays the songs we've scarcely heard before, Because no one was ever home -- she plays them o'er and o'er.... -- from "The Quaratine for Flu"
  • BEES! You can NEVER have too many books!
  • Used to think so, too, BlueHorse. [weeps] But I woz wrong!
  • I also have far too many books. I don't have room for them all, yet still the postman keeps bringing them.
  • Wolof, my sympathy is with ye. This is how folk end up moving to a larger house or putting on a new addition.
  • It's OK, I'm building another house soon. This one's nice, but it's too small.
  • Aye. We have to add on to this old place.
  • To the young Ms. Best I said 'But where will I put all of the books' and she said 'Get rid of them' !! I believe my utter shock and dismay perhaps had an effect as she denies saying that to this day. And the books are still there
  • Wouldn't that just be the cat's frilly undies!
  • Given the stupidity of bureaucracy, I'm sure the odds are damn good.