Honestly - please try not to worry...

[seeker]

it's flu, not the Black Death!

Totally agree that media hype is, as usual, counter productive.

My dad is immuno suppressed due to chemotherapy and was fretting yesterday about swine flu.

But as far as I can gather there is a risk to him from any flu virus and would have been the same last year, so no particular need to have extra worries about swine flu.

Why is there no risk to your dad from flu virus?? Surely as someone immunosuppressed he is at higher risk?

Look, I agree with the need to avoid panic, but I haven't seen much excessive reporting in the papers I read as I'm not a tabloid buyer/reader.

I think there are two ends of the spectrum here - the crazy panicking of the 'worried well' (most of whom have no underlying health conditions and have been told a million times that it's likely to be a few days off work and some lemsip) and what someone on other thread called the other, equally unhelpful 'stiff upper lip let's pretend it's not happening and get over ourselves'.

This IS a risk to people who are already unwell. Sorry, but it is. 652 people in ICU with flu is twice the number that would be usual at the height of a typical flu season.
Many of those people will go on to be okay, but who wants to end up in ICU if they can avoid it?

Pregnant women (like myself!) have been advised to avoid public transport/unnecessary travel/crowds. Given that most pregnant women assiduously avoid eating rare meet and soft cheeses to avoid listeriar (risk = about 129 pregant women per million), this is hardly 'panic', just recognition that it is potentially more dangerous for these women.

All I personally want to help me be calm is a story from ONE person who has asthma AND is pregnant who says, 'hey, I felt like rubbish, but I could treat it at home and me and the baby are fine now'. I'm not hearing it. And I have looked... on every forum, in every paper, all over. I've found examples from both camps but nothing that reassures me that I would be okay.

Meanwhile, I'll keep going to work (dealing with the public, a good ol' healthcare worker, working in GP clinics etc) but what are my choices here?

a) Choose not to worry and do nothing
b) Worry a bit and avoid unnecessary risks - have colleagues ask clients if they've been unwell before they come in to my room, car pool with my husband and come in later to avoid the train, shove alcohol gel/tissue at my clients if they sneeze, go shopping at less busy times, avoid the cinema and other places that you're in close containment with others?

Why is this 'panic' and totally unreasonable?
Come on now, where's the evidence of panic?

Oops, sorry, poor reading on my part!

my local newspaper have published no less than 13 swine flu related artacles in the past 24 hours.

There is talk of schools having to remain closed after the summer holidays to contain the spread. Yet it's not just children spreading it, and how long can they possibly keep schools closed for? It is estimated that this could continue for another nine months or so, so what are we to do, just write off a year of education for our children?

Fwiw I have had it. I did not take the tamiflu I was prescribed as didn't want the side effects (wonder if it'll be worth money on ebay? ). It was nowhere near as bad as seasonal flu which I have had only once in my lifetime. And there is one positive to this all - I lost my appetite and it still hasn't really returned and as a result I have lost 6 lb in a week - result!

Seriously though, while swine flu may be much worse for some, panicking about it isn't actually going to stop you from catching it, so why panic?

I don't get the "keep schools closed" thing either.

Surely during the holidays children mix with other children as well? Or are we all supposed to turn into hermits during the holidays to reduce the risk of it spreading?

wannaBe, do you KNOW you had it, or did you have some symptoms and get 'diagnosed' over the phone??

I really don't see where all this 'panic' is?

So all women who avoid soft cheeses/rare meats etc because of an infinitesmally small risk (1 in 129 million) from listeria are panicking?

Why does "being cautious" equate to "panic" and being blase equate and "carrying on regardless" equate to being reasonable?

I have had flu before and was feeling a bit 'OhMyGodI'mGoingToDie' for about a fortnight but got over it so I'm not bothered about me.

DS has asthma and I was worried enough to ask the nurse what to look out for and what to do about it if I thought he had it.

Its difficult not to wonder, when others are going into panic mode, if they know something you don't.

Now I have the information its 'as you were' around here and I'm not going to worry about something that may not happen and I can do nothing about.

MrsBean, is anyone equating caution with panic? I hope not, that really wouldn't make sense. Its hard to find that sensible middle road, but am trying daily (with wobbles either way from time to time, usually late at night)

mrsbean everyone is now being diagnosed over the phone. So it is entirely possible that of the 50000 cases diagnosed last week, most did not have swine flu. There's just no way of knowing as swabs are no longer being taken.

I was told it was probably swine flu, and was prescribed tamiflu. But I was also told that gp's are really under a huge amount of pressure to diagnose swine flu when actually it could easily just be a heavy cold.

The advice is now for pregnant women to stay at home. why? where is the evidence that pregnant women are more likely to die?

In reality the only way to avoid catching it is to isolate yourself and all those in your family from society. there is no other way, and that is simply not realistic.

I can see the increased concern of those who have underlying health conditions, of course I can. Because of the 29 people who have died of swine flu, 28 had underlying health conditions.

But for the rest, there is no more risk from swine flu than any other flu, so no more reason for concern.

Wannabe,

The evidence relating to pregnancy comes from the international scene, where pregnant women have made up a disproportionate amount of women who have been hospitalised with complications, relative to normal seasonal flu rates. Women with underlying health conditions who are pregnant seem to be at particular risk. This has been the case in both the US and Australia.

Pregnant women have always been at greater risk for complications from seasonal flu, but from what I have read, they are really quite unclear at present regarding why swine flu seems to be affecting pregnant women more severely.

I can't help but think that if there was better quality information, people would panic less. But the information is contradictory. Public Health Minister Gillian Merron has just said in an interview on the new guidelines that pregnant women who are healthy should just 'carry on' as 'pregnancy is not an illness'. It's hard to have trust in the government when public health messages are flimsy, not based on any apparent evidence and contradicted at all levels.

With reference to the 29 who have died, and 28 have underlying medical problems, the 1 who didnt, was that the six year old or the man who died?

It was the man.

did they actually say what was wrong with the six year old? I actually find that scary, the idea that she had other medical conditions that her doctors / parents seemed to be aware of

sorry - meant that they didn't seem to be aware of

Of the 28 with 'underlying health conditions', how many of them would have actually died from these conditions if they had not contracted swine flu?

The poor lady who died after birth had been in a wheelchair for ten years without it killing her, and had had several kids before without complications.

So did she die because of 'underlying health conditions' or because she got flu?? It doesn't mean that it isn't serious because people had triggers that made the presentation worse.

mrsbean - I think for many with "underlying" health issue any virus/infection can be dangerous for them.

generally very little information has been released about any of the deceased, I think to protect their families/privacy.

Mrsbean it doesn't have to be the underlying health condition that kills someone. But someone with an underlying health condition is more likely to be affected by swine flu than someone without. I don't think it's wrong to say that. If someone already has respiratory problems for instance, then it's possible that a condition such as the flu (any flu) which does affect one's chest etc is going to have a greater impact than on someone who doesn't already have an existing respiratory condition. Ditto with someone who has immune problems.

If we continue to place more emphasis on the fact that it is those with existing health conditions who are at greater risk, then those who are not at such great risk may stop panicking and clogging up the nhs, thus freeing up resources to treat those in genuine need.

WTH is 'catch it, bin it, kill it'????????

I'm not worried about getting it. I suspect that I will get it in the course of time given that the vaccine is still months away.

But I don't want to get it in the next three weeks.

After that, I'm ready for it.

EPPM basically use a tissue cough/sneeze to catch the germs, throw the tissue away, wash hands. Posters/ads are all over the place !

and just how is closing the schools going to stop the spread? Children will still be in contact with one another, as will adults.

If they are to close schools they realistically also have to close all nurseries, shut down all childminders, all soft play centres, basically anywhere where any children can get together.

catch it, bin it , kill it =

when you sneeze or cough, cover your mouth and nose with a tisse

throw it in the bin

wash your hands immediately, or use anti bac hand gel

Closing schools could still make a difference. Just because doing something doesn't reduce a risk to zero doesn't mean it's automatically not worth doing. Otherwise we're all loons putting children in car seats!

Whether closing a particular school at a particular time is likely to slow down transmission of pandemic flu by a small, middling or large amount is going to be hard to say. I imagine the answer's not going to be the same for all schools (and you've got to take into account the cost in terms of working parents having to take time off, which can also screw things up). But closing some schools will slow down transmission, even if not to zero because children will mix elsewhere too. Not quite as many children will mix and probably not for as many hours each day. That could a difference to local hospitals dealing with the surge in demand. I think this is the sort of thing that the pandemic planners have to work out and it must be a hard call to make.

and what will that do to an already failing economy?