What's everyone think of this swine flu?
 

I think it's just more media scare bullshit.

Freaking me out a bit. I hope it doesn't make it's way up here.

Never heard of it.

We won't know how bad it is until it's completely out of hand, and everyone is running to Stephen King for guidance.

Woke up this morning (well, afternoon) thinking I had had a dream in which I had heard about 60 people dieing from swine flu in Mexico. I thought it was strange thing to dream about as I had never even heard of swine flu and wondered where I had got the idea from. Went on the internet and it turned it had actually happened. I must have read it on the internet last night but I really can't remember doing that. Very strange.

But yeah it is very worrying.

Well the fact it can kill people in good health IS scary, even more as it's an H1N1 subtype (like the 1918 pandemic).

Parallel with 1918 flu pandemic :

I think it looks cute

Chances are, apart from the unfortunate people in mexico, nothing will really happen. But media awareness (well, panic) about this kind of shit is of course a good thing since it usually induces measures that prevent spreading and stimulates anti-flu research.
And if not, we all die.

Well said. And extreme reactions from a minority are often productive.

At least it's not winter.

I think it's actually pretty incredible how efficient the WHO is at dealing with this type of thing. Of course they have to scare the shit out of everybody, but that has actually helped make people be careful.

SARS didn't turn out to be the global killer it could have, but maybe, just maybe the WHO letting the world know how it could have been led to people taking precautions and stopped it from spreading. That stuff doesn't work as well in Africa where people are too poor to really care and education is very difficult to achieve. But in the developed world, the "media scare" is often a good thing, and the WHO does stop more of this stuff than they get credit for.

In hindsight, we look at Y2K as a ridiculously overhyped phenomena in the tech world that didn't manifest itself much at all. But if people (and more importantly corporations and governments) hadn't freaked out and spent millions of dollars preventing it, then maybe it would have been as bad as the dire predictions.

Paranoid beats oblivious if you have to choose.

The birdflu is passé by now.

Pigs will always be scarier than ducks.

While I appreciate the rest of your post, WHAT are you talking about here? What would have actually happened during Y2K, I mean, huh?

I think what he means is we're better off safe than sorry. It could have been alot worse if it had actually happened, and we didn't do anything to prepare...

I'm genuinely concerned about it, just because I work at the UK head office of a Mexican company, with a lot of people travelling back and forth between the two countries.

When I get into work on Monday morning, I would like to see something to give UK staff reassurance regarding their safety. However, I expect to see nothing of the sort.

I dunno, I always kinda secretly hoped the bird flu would kill us all, since they are linked to dinosaurs, if for nothing but the irony....

I'm not particularly worried.

Ha ha

Fuck

http://news.uk.msn.com/world/article...entid=16367514

Apparently no one has died outside of Mexico, and some have made full recoveries. So....that's a good sign...

Yes, shit. It's in NY now. That's really close to me... but, yes. flophousefloozie did mention that no people have died outside of Mexico. So that is a really good sign. Well, not if you live in Mexico.

A massive computer failure that would have wiped out infrastructure including possibly power-grid. I don't think the world was ever in danger of ending, but if the corporations and governments hadn't done massive reprogramming in paranoia, there would have been huge messes all over society. Again, it looks like nothing now, because they did prepare for it and thus nothing major happened.

And apparently there's been something like 1000 infections so if there's roughly a 1 in 10 chance of dieing then that's not too bad.

I just don't understand, is our society really that dependent on technology? I mean a computer crashes, so what? Especially in 1999?

Planes would've fallen out of the sky.

Hospitals would have been fucked also.

It's in Scotland now. Yikes.

You must have been quite young in 2000. It was a serious threat.

You're kidding, right?

Just think of how people get all crazy when their power goes out for a few hours and they can't watch tv or use electricity...x10.

but we need bacon, it's vital to life.

push butan

receive bacon

Say you like it
Say you need it
When you don't

Oh shit it's in Ohio now too!

Looks like it's only killing the mexicans though, whoopie!!!!!!

THATS FER TOOKIN OWOUR JERBS!

Well you're right I was only 9 at the time >.> But still, it seems like, how pathetic do you have to be? It would have been fixed eventually even if it did happen, so..

The only point I was making is there was a potential crisis and the world actually dealt with it, turning it into a non-story for the rest of history. Funny how that goes.

Shit. I live in Scotland!

don't worry, humans will still be here.

it's nearly impossible to infect madagascar.

one whiff of super-virus, and it's "PORT'S CLOSED".