Hard News: There is History
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Sorry Jan if I was a bit confrontational. 3410's comment seemed to me to carry a sceptical "Wot's all this, then?" connotation, rather than promoting it, and Stephen's & Mark's replies carried that further. When first-time poster "Bob" popped up later with a post that carried all the hallmarks of spam, and for a site that's obviously related to one which we had been questioning earlier in the thread, it seemed highly unlikely to have been someone who had been following the thread with genuine interest.
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I'm getting more and more wound up about this.
I just clicked through my earlier link to stuff to see if an outbreak of sanity had occurred, but nooooooo.
Last update 7:12 PM.
Not only is the uninformed opinion of some random still up there, but the very first line of the article reads as follows:
At least four district health boards are battling a suspected swine flu outbreak
'Battling'. Now there's a nice, neutral, non-emotive word to describe the situation. Absolutely, positively guaranteed to calm the situation down.
Not at all going to give the impression of hospitals under siege, troops called out to enforce quarantine, rings of razor wire and so on.
'At least four'. AND IT COULD BE MORE!!!!!
In fact, why not just write 'CREEPING DEATH STALKS THE LAND AND WILL COME FOR YOU AND YOUR LOVED ONES IN YOUR BED TONIGHT!'
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it seemed highly unlikely to have been someone who had been following the thread with genuine interest.
Indeed. I'm calling bob a spammer, but seeing as we're talking about it, I'll leave the post where it is.
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Here's a different question: what happens in a country with private healthcare when a large percentage of the population visits the doctor and therefore makes a claim at the same time?
Do health insurance policies have the same "act of god" clause that regular insurance policies have?
Do we end up with more faux-capitalism whereby the insurers complain of extenuating circumstances and ask for a bailout?
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Most viruses including flu are transmitted by hand to mouth or hand to eye transfer from an infected person to an uninfected person. Aerosol infection is possible with flu but is the minor form of transmission.
And it most definitely is a news story. None of the media I have seen/heard have played it for more than is reasonable - yet. It would be ridiculous for the media to ignore the story.
FWIW - this point was teased out at the press conference given by health officials this morning. I know for a fact ZB ran it (cos I wrote it) and so did TVNZ. It was referrred to in their 6pm coverage.
Now as far as the reports involving investigations at other DHBs. These are linked to people who were on Air NZ 1, or at least had contact with them. So the potential for outbreak/spread is a possibility.
As an addendum. Back during the SARS scare I interviewed virologist Lance Jenninings. He's pretty much the go to guy and leading expert domestically on this stuff. He said at the time a serious pandemic was a matter of when, not if.
I don't know if what's happening now is the real thing but I'm sure as hell going to treat it seriously until I do.
As you were
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Now as far as the reports involving investigations at other DHBs. These are linked to people who were on Air NZ 1, or at least had contact with them. So the potential for outbreak/spread is a possibility.
As an addendum. Back during the SARS scare I interviewed virologist Lance Jenninings. He's pretty much the go to guy and leading expert domestically on this stuff. He said at the time a serious pandemic was a matter of when, not if.
I don't know if what's happening now is the real thing but I'm sure as hell going to treat it seriously until I do.
Felix - speaking for myself, I'm not suggesting this shouldn't be a story. Clearly it is concerning. Clearly it has the potential to turn into something quite nasty. It might, it might not, we don't know. So I want the facts, and I want informed commentary.
What I object to very, very strongly is the way that the few facts we know are padded out with uninformed comment from people (members of the public) who I really don't give a flying fuck to be hearing from right now.
I also really, really strongly object to the use of over-emotive descriptors ramp up the emotional charge. That's really, really counter-productive.
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"The 1918 virus was different from this one, however, because its H surface protein was from birds."
Some ways to go before we all get too concerned, me thinks.
That it is porcine rather than avian tells us nothing about the likelihood of it having pandemic propensities. It is far from that simple unfortunately. Time to watchful. Don't stock the larder yet unless it is with things that will keep and you would eat them anyway for eg.
Oh and people washing your hands is only half the battle. They have to be dry as well. Viruses last much longer in wet conditions than on dry surfaces, which includes skin. Wash and dry your hands before eating by hand etc. Good practice in the normal flu season iow.
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Point taken Rich.
Hopefully it'll all turn out to be much ado about nothing.
Still it was interesting to observe the senior health officials today emphasizing the importance of media coverage in getting the safety message out.
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1.
There's a lot of cynicism about the swine flu. The SARS and bird flu scares seem to have been a bit like the boy crying wolf. People are wary of claims of pandemics because they've seen the media going mental over it twice before in recent years with nary an Aotearoan sneeze to show for it.
2.
NB: Clip also contains perversely gratifying mention of New Zealand.
One strange side effect of this whole situation: that thrill in seeing the world's media paying attention to little ol' New Zealand.
Hey, look over here, America! We have sick people too! Yay! :D
3.I'm calling bob a spammer, but seeing as we're talking about it, I'll leave the post where it is.
I remember the good old days of the palm oil spammer. Things were so much simpler then...
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Sorry Jan if I was a bit confrontational.
Look Mark (and 3410 and Russell) - you could all be right - it's a strange site to have popped up like that - but what if poor old Bob's a genuine first-timer? I mean I Google things. Don't we all?
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Here's a different question: what happens in a country with private healthcare when a large percentage of the population visits the doctor and therefore makes a claim at the same time?
Do health insurance policies have the same "act of god" clause that regular insurance policies have?
Do we end up with more faux-capitalism whereby the insurers complain of extenuating circumstances and ask for a bailout?
They don't cover Acute Care in NZ, basically anything requiring immediate attention .... go to A&E
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I'm calling bob a spammer
... with the further possibility of driveby online infections, which would be kinda ironic don't you think. Hence me no click that link.
Jan, Bob's phrasing sounds spammy and you'll notice it's different than how most posters here contextualise links. Put that together with it being post number one, and my instinct agrees with others. Add in reports that the domain registration is similar to that earlier link and I'm nearly 100% sure.
Of course if we're wrong then Bob's due a few beers at the next gathering in Dunedin or Welli or wherever. Providing he washes his hands.
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Jan, Bob's phrasing sounds spammy and you'll notice it's different than how most posters here contextualise links. Put that together with it being post number one, and my instinct agrees with others. Add in reports that the domain registration is similar to that earlier link and I'm nearly 100% sure.
I don't usually leap in like that, but as with Sacha, my spammy-sense was tingling, and it seemed in particularly poor taste for someone to try to scam a bit of Google-ad revenue out of a situation where (pandemic or not) people are actually dying.
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The "symptoms of swine flu" site is on a domain registered yesterday by by Bruce Wileman of BB Internet Group, Johnsonville, Wellington.
It already has a Google rank of 5, and I'm not inclined to further participate in Mr Wileman's game. The spam links are going.
3410, where did you see the link in the first place?
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Look Mark (and 3410 and Russell) - you could all be right - it's a strange site to have popped up like that - but what if poor old Bob's a genuine first-timer? I mean I Google things. Don't we all?
I hat to use the phrase "when you've been around the Internet as long as I have..." but that's what it amounted to. Unlike Sacha, I clicked the link, saw it was the same "BB Internet" and style of website and got out before I inadvertently earned him some money.
I could accept a first time poster asking questions, but the phraseology was such that my spammy sense went tingling too.
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Just as I suspected. It didn't take a heuristics algorithm for me to figure it out.
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And if you had washed your card and hands before doing anything else you would have probably avoided it.
Excellent advice, and having some background in microbiology, I am usually more vigilant at hand washing. But I made the mistake of being polite rather than cautious, and in putting the contaminated card in my wallet and waiting until I'd got home to wash my hands, I contaminated everything I touched myself - and probably left a trail of viruses for everyone else...
Though it's impossible to tell if the doctor's receptionist was even the source of the infection, it's quite possible to have contracted the virus from many other places - the doctor who saw me might have been the source of infection, as flu is contagious for a time (about 18 - 24 hours) before any symptoms are seen at all. All it takes is someone talking within a metre or so of your face.
Most viruses including flu are transmitted by hand to mouth or hand to eye transfer from an infected person to an uninfected person. Aerosol infection is possible with flu but is the minor form of transmission.
Er, other way around.
Transmission: how do you catch it?
In most cases, the influenza virus is transmitted from infected people coughing and sneezing. Droplets can settle on the mucosal surfaces of the upper respiratory tracts of susceptible people who are nearby (close contact as defined by WHO is "approximately 1 m"). Transmission may also occur by direct contact such as skin-to-skin or by indirect contact with respiratory secretions, as when touching surfaces contaminated with influenza virus and then touching the eyes, nose or mouth.]]
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WH,
There's a lot of cynicism about the swine flu. The SARS and bird flu scares seem to have been a bit like the boy crying wolf. People are wary of claims of pandemics because they've seen the media going mental over it twice before in recent years with nary an Aotearoan sneeze to show for it.
I can't speak to the potential for there to be a global pandemic, but I think that people tire of having their emotional state manipulated so that media organisations can hold their attention all the freaking time. Ultimately it encourages a blase attitude.
Sky Sports News' theme music (UK) is particularly grating. It plays, like, all the freaking time. Interesting at first, eventually you just want the drama to chillax. It's like, if you don't save some adjectives or special music for when I really should be excited, how am I supposed to know?
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Nightline said there have been 6 deaths in the US and 103 in Mexico. Wow.
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WH,
Oooh - I found the full version, bearing in mind that SSN samples and loops it. Doesn't it make you feel alive?
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Somebody got paid good money to think up that. And they wonder why the world is going to hell in a handbasket!
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No wonder people take sport far too seriously.
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Nightline said there have been 6 deaths in the US and 103 in Mexico. Wow.
But I'm not seeing this anywhere else. I wonder where they got it from.
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Google map of infections courtesy @rands
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Google map of infections courtesy @rands
Nice. If that's the word ...
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