To think that people really need to get a grip over the whole swine flu business?

[wannaBe]

Let's face it, we are all going to die. Nobody knows how, nobody knows when.

100 people have died of swine flu. 100 people. And yet people are talking of panic buying/keeping children home from school/wanting to know why flights from meccico have not been stopped.

100 people. worldwide.

I wonder how many people were killed on the roads during that time?

If you're going to catch swine flu, you'll catch it whether you panic about it or not. And given only 100 people have died of it so far, currently, the odds are pretty slim. And even if it reaches pandemic level (such as bird flu/sars didn't but the media were desparately hoping they would) there's still not much you can do about it.

100 people.

seriously.

The tabloid front pages are now feeding the hysteria. Putting words like "Killer Disease" in big red letters on the news stand do not help.

I expect the Armageddon nutters will be blogging furiously at this point, end of times end of times

Oh goodie, does that mean Bruce Willis will turn up and save the day?

One of our customers was adamant she had flu, her symptoms were "a runny nose". That's it. I told her I have had flu, proper flu, twice and each time I thought I was going to die. The first time I couldn't get out of bed for 10 days.

sfxmum - I just idly typed "nostradamus flu 2009" into Google.

I got thousands of hits !

Cannot be bothered to click on any links.

This reminds me of the disaster movies you get on sci fi or five. Wacky scientists predict this, point out similarities to something they have been working on and say we have 48 to fix it. No-one believes it is going to happen, then eventually when the sky starts to catch on fire or somesuch we all turn to the said bunch of wacky scientists who then save us all.
So there's no need to worry.

I hope this helps.

fnar fnar.

Obviously abetadad extra meaty summer copy for the usual end of the world piece

bless them it is thrill a minute

I expect the worst case scenario in the UK will be a an unusually large percentage of people on sick leave and the ensuing problems

Abeta if you swap 2009 for 2008 every it almost (all 75k of them) links it to bird flu

Ho hum

Seven tested for swine flu in West Country snipurl.com/gx5l6

As an experiment I just typed my name plus 'bird flu' into Google and got 4080 hits.

I would be interested to see if that works for everyone.

"People so often claim to have flu when they just have a very bad cold that they don't understand how serious flu can be. I read once - if you don't think you might be going to die, then it ain't flu."

Totally agree...only had flu once and dear god was I poorly.

Completely!

We used to get students all the time coming into the office and saying, 'I have flu,'

The department head would always quip, 'If you had flu you wouldn't be standing here.'

I'm in Bristol - I'll be taping up my windows then!

cheeseandpickle - is that branston in your sandwich, or picallili? Just wondered. I have eaten my lunch but you have caused me to crave a cheese and picalilli sandwich

Damn you

Branston! Always Branston. Picalilli is for cold meats IMO. Although I am not judging your tastes...

And the excellent thing about pickles is that they last... good for the zombie plan.

If you have flu it can indeed be awfully bad, my parents just had it, and were laid out two weeks. It can kill as well - so we must not make light of the impact on any specific individual that may be unlucky enough to get it.

However, the probability of a severe outbreak running out of control in the UK is very very low and that is the part of the message that the media is NOT putting across at all. Hence, people are focussing on the very high impact if they get it and not the very low probability of actually getting it at all.

Sadly, it seems that is just too complex a message for our rolling 24 hour news media to put across.

As I said in an earlier post (honestly, don't think anyone even reads my contributions... ), if you can make it to the Drs, you ain't got flu! If you feel like you want to die, it's a cold; if you feel like you are going to die, then it's flu.

minesacheese - I read it and thought it was a good comment.

Thank-you ABetaDad, nice to know someone appreciates me...

Very true minesacheese. Or you can use the 20 quid test to determine whether it's a cold or flu...

I read it to minesacheese

Dh just called in sick with a random virus (he does genuinely feel like shite as it happens but also is redundant from Monday so no, guilt wont be getting him there) and was so embarassed people might think he is worried about swine flu!

If the flu happens i will worry about death, right now my main concern is simply I don't want to feel like shit for two weeks.

How come people with this flu seem to only have mild symptoms, yet people are still trotting out the £20 test/feel like dying thing when people say they have flu? Surely it shows that you can have flu and not be laid up in bed for 2 weeks.

Perhaps by 'mild' they mean not likely to die or develop serious complications. So mild for flu.

Flu symptoms are very different from an actual bout of flu. My DP (bless him) gets flu symptoms, but the only time he has actually had flu, in the eight plus years I have been with him, were when he was unable to get out of bed, unable to read a book, unable to surf the net, and hallucinating.

And he knows it! He still occasionally complains of flu (he's off today with a nasty throat) but he's only out for sympathy.

P.S. What is the £20 test? Sounds interesting...