You're sick. Got the runny nose, the raspy breath and the turmoil stomach. My God, I'm gonna die! Maybe you've got the Swine Flu?
And maybe you don't. Unless you allow your head to reside eight to ten inches below the dirt level you have at least heard the words mentioned together in the last week. Swine flu. It's going to kill everybody. Or maybe it won't kill anybody. There's a shortage of flu vaccines but a surplus of speculation. And amidst the facts the truth gets lost.
Swine Flu. What is it? Good question. Most people don't even know. I didn't and it took a while for me to find out. You wanna know? Well it's like this then.
Swine Flu is a name given to describe a variation of Influenza. Influenza is a viral disease. A virus is an infective agent that causes a disease. Influenza strikes the lungs and takes out the body's immune system. It can kill you dead. Chances are you have experienced Influenza at some point in your life. Feels kind of like a cross between food poisoning, endless wet coughing, joint pain and muscle ache. Maybe not all of these symptoms at once but see, Influenza has many, many forms. The powers that be classify it as either A, B or C depending on its transmitability and then further depending on its variation. For example H5N1 or H3N2. Whatever and so on. And it's small. It's about 1/10,000 of a millemeter small. you can't see it. And someone might breathe or sneeze one of these little dudes at you. You breathe. It's in you.
And when he gets in there he does a neat little trick in that he burrows into a cell and pretty much closes the door once he's inside. this is where he does the work by mutating and multiplying and preparing to run chaos on your body once he finishes the incubation period (which in the classic H1N1 form is almost exactly 10 hours to the minute after one is infected). And while he is secluded inside your cell he goes unnoticed by the body's police force, the white blood cells which constantly patrol the body detecting and eliminating foreign threats.
And then, at the tick of the tenth hour, the Influenza rips the cell open and floods the body with a massive wave assault of infectious little destroyers which swamps the immune system (white blood cells) and the body is thus forced into a deep battle between the Influenza and itself.
And you can probably remember how it felt while this battle was being raged. Didn't feel so hot. So that's what this is. Another round of the flu. But this bit of flu is one that needs some recognition. First off it qualifies as the H1N1 strain. That's the same strain that ran bananas in 1918 and killed more people in twelve weeks than World War One did in four years. So we haven't seen the H1N1 since 1918. That's a big deal. Plus, this Influenza edition has achieved the third stage of development. Stage 1 has the virus being passed between animals, generally birds (we'll get to this later). Stage 2 elevates it to an animal to human passage. Remember the Bird Flu from a few years ago? That one never got past Stage 2. Only people with the direct handling of infected birds got sick. This time however, it has popped up to Stage 3 which means it's getting passed from human to human. Obviously these factors are cause for concern.
Why is it called the Swine Flu? Again, this is a disease. Like Rabies or Typhus. These kind of things are often found roaming around the animal kingdom. Ever seen a rabid dog? Me neither but I wouldn't want to get bit by one. Most often Influenza is carried by birds, hence the the Avian Bird Flu. Occasionally the birds give it to the pigs and in this case the pigs gave it to a human. A little kid, four years old, lives in Mexico. This is key too because by finding the 'Patient Zero' it gives our team a much better chance of finding some answers. In 1918 Ground Zero wasn't found until much later and after the fact.
And the answers are alarming but they need to be placed in perspective. And the perspective is always bench marked against what happened in 1918 when a little fire of Influenza sparked and got carried by a recruit from a small town in western Kansas to a soldier camp outside Manhattan, Kansas where it erupted and before anyone knew or could say a thing it swept east, overseas and global. But between January of 1918 when it started (April, 2009) and October, 1918 (February, 2010) when it was peaking the Influenza Virus H1N1 went underground and mutated and returned with a fury that earned it the nickname 'Three Day Flu' for the way it would strike and kill inside three days.
But here is where perspective must be gained. In a worst case scenario, which 1918 was in every sense of the word, about 80% of the global population would get sick with this strain of the Swine Flu. So if it runs its course, which nature seems to always do, we could see at worst 80% of all humans coming down with this variation of the flu. And we'd be sick, it would be a bad deal but of this eighty percent only about five percent would actually perish, the rest would make a full recovery. So look at it like this. If this runs the worst case scenario outline, of every 100 people you know 80 would get sick from about January to March of next year. And of this 80, four would be dead. Now that's still pretty shocking. I mean imagine if over the next three months four out of every hundred people you know died of the same thing. It would get your attention. If we use Mexico City as the model this translates to 1,080,000 dead people. That's more than what the morgue can handle but it's still a far stretch to talk about worst case scenarios at this point.
What is more likely is that if this virus does go underground and mutates and escalates there will be pockets where the virus is less powerful than in others. For instance a coastal city in Florida may experience a five percent mortality rate while Los Angeles might only see a death rate of one percent. These variables are too unpredictable to measure any accurate estimates at this point but they do provide some interesting 'what ifs'.
So should we start a global panic? Prepare ourselves for the end of the world? That would be a little bit of over reaction. Trust your immune system. You've got a 95% chance of making a full recovery if you happen to catch this thing.
Those are good enough odds to bet the house on.
And maybe you don't. Unless you allow your head to reside eight to ten inches below the dirt level you have at least heard the words mentioned together in the last week. Swine flu. It's going to kill everybody. Or maybe it won't kill anybody. There's a shortage of flu vaccines but a surplus of speculation. And amidst the facts the truth gets lost.
Swine Flu. What is it? Good question. Most people don't even know. I didn't and it took a while for me to find out. You wanna know? Well it's like this then.
Swine Flu is a name given to describe a variation of Influenza. Influenza is a viral disease. A virus is an infective agent that causes a disease. Influenza strikes the lungs and takes out the body's immune system. It can kill you dead. Chances are you have experienced Influenza at some point in your life. Feels kind of like a cross between food poisoning, endless wet coughing, joint pain and muscle ache. Maybe not all of these symptoms at once but see, Influenza has many, many forms. The powers that be classify it as either A, B or C depending on its transmitability and then further depending on its variation. For example H5N1 or H3N2. Whatever and so on. And it's small. It's about 1/10,000 of a millemeter small. you can't see it. And someone might breathe or sneeze one of these little dudes at you. You breathe. It's in you.
And when he gets in there he does a neat little trick in that he burrows into a cell and pretty much closes the door once he's inside. this is where he does the work by mutating and multiplying and preparing to run chaos on your body once he finishes the incubation period (which in the classic H1N1 form is almost exactly 10 hours to the minute after one is infected). And while he is secluded inside your cell he goes unnoticed by the body's police force, the white blood cells which constantly patrol the body detecting and eliminating foreign threats.
And then, at the tick of the tenth hour, the Influenza rips the cell open and floods the body with a massive wave assault of infectious little destroyers which swamps the immune system (white blood cells) and the body is thus forced into a deep battle between the Influenza and itself.
And you can probably remember how it felt while this battle was being raged. Didn't feel so hot. So that's what this is. Another round of the flu. But this bit of flu is one that needs some recognition. First off it qualifies as the H1N1 strain. That's the same strain that ran bananas in 1918 and killed more people in twelve weeks than World War One did in four years. So we haven't seen the H1N1 since 1918. That's a big deal. Plus, this Influenza edition has achieved the third stage of development. Stage 1 has the virus being passed between animals, generally birds (we'll get to this later). Stage 2 elevates it to an animal to human passage. Remember the Bird Flu from a few years ago? That one never got past Stage 2. Only people with the direct handling of infected birds got sick. This time however, it has popped up to Stage 3 which means it's getting passed from human to human. Obviously these factors are cause for concern.
Why is it called the Swine Flu? Again, this is a disease. Like Rabies or Typhus. These kind of things are often found roaming around the animal kingdom. Ever seen a rabid dog? Me neither but I wouldn't want to get bit by one. Most often Influenza is carried by birds, hence the the Avian Bird Flu. Occasionally the birds give it to the pigs and in this case the pigs gave it to a human. A little kid, four years old, lives in Mexico. This is key too because by finding the 'Patient Zero' it gives our team a much better chance of finding some answers. In 1918 Ground Zero wasn't found until much later and after the fact.
And the answers are alarming but they need to be placed in perspective. And the perspective is always bench marked against what happened in 1918 when a little fire of Influenza sparked and got carried by a recruit from a small town in western Kansas to a soldier camp outside Manhattan, Kansas where it erupted and before anyone knew or could say a thing it swept east, overseas and global. But between January of 1918 when it started (April, 2009) and October, 1918 (February, 2010) when it was peaking the Influenza Virus H1N1 went underground and mutated and returned with a fury that earned it the nickname 'Three Day Flu' for the way it would strike and kill inside three days.
But here is where perspective must be gained. In a worst case scenario, which 1918 was in every sense of the word, about 80% of the global population would get sick with this strain of the Swine Flu. So if it runs its course, which nature seems to always do, we could see at worst 80% of all humans coming down with this variation of the flu. And we'd be sick, it would be a bad deal but of this eighty percent only about five percent would actually perish, the rest would make a full recovery. So look at it like this. If this runs the worst case scenario outline, of every 100 people you know 80 would get sick from about January to March of next year. And of this 80, four would be dead. Now that's still pretty shocking. I mean imagine if over the next three months four out of every hundred people you know died of the same thing. It would get your attention. If we use Mexico City as the model this translates to 1,080,000 dead people. That's more than what the morgue can handle but it's still a far stretch to talk about worst case scenarios at this point.
What is more likely is that if this virus does go underground and mutates and escalates there will be pockets where the virus is less powerful than in others. For instance a coastal city in Florida may experience a five percent mortality rate while Los Angeles might only see a death rate of one percent. These variables are too unpredictable to measure any accurate estimates at this point but they do provide some interesting 'what ifs'.
So should we start a global panic? Prepare ourselves for the end of the world? That would be a little bit of over reaction. Trust your immune system. You've got a 95% chance of making a full recovery if you happen to catch this thing.
Those are good enough odds to bet the house on.
