OMG! Souter announces resignation to distract people from the H1N1 flu!

[hedgehog]

Seriously - I put this flu in the same class as a tropical depression headed to the US. It might fade away, it might be a tropical storm or it might blow up into a CAT5. We know some tropical depression fade away and some turn into disasters that people remember for years. The proper response is to stay alert, be prepared to take the steps needed in response for the worst and keep an eye on developments.

[sui generis]

1. I'll just keep calling it the swine flu.

jeezus fucking christ on a stick. I feel the urge to take a GR8-B1G-#2.

[damntexdem]

5. Oh, no! The NAFTA Flu! Factory-Farming Flu.

The worst of the pigs aren't the four-legged kind.

[uppityperson]

2. Bright shiny thing! Having schools closed, people freaking out is trouble though

Letting the public health people do there work, while watching and waiting, is a good thing.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/2009155250_fluperspective01m.html
Experts warn: Answers in flu's spread will be slow in coming

Any attempt to put the swine-flu outbreak in perspective runs up against what our Twitter-obsessed, 24-hour news culture fears most: lack of information. There's no way around that. Experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) escalated threat levels quickly after recognizing the virus was something new. That, in turn, mobilized governments to take action and the public to take precautions — like more regular hand-washing — in hopes of slowing the spread while professionals scrambled to understand the outbreak.

But it means the rest of us are learning about swine flu in real time. And it means answers to our most pertinent questions — How contagious is it? Who is most vulnerable? How concerned should I be? — simply have to wait. "We as Americans are a little short on patience, but I'm afraid that's what it's going to take to figure out what's going on," said Gerald Callahan, a professor of immunology and pathology at Colorado State University. "There's just not very much useful information available."

Right now, experts maintain the risks of contracting the infection in Washington state are extremely low. Consider that every year, five to 20 percent of the U.S. gets a seasonal flu. And every year, about 36,000 of them die. The number of Americans nationwide who've contracted swine flu has only just surpassed 100. In addition, most influenza viruses in the northern hemisphere taper off during summer months. Most previous pandemics came in waves, with relatively minor outbreaks in spring, a severe return in fall and another minor wave the following spring. What's not clear yet is whether this virus will even follow that pattern.

(clip)
Still, there're several reasons for all the attention — and for the limited information. Virologists believe we're overdue for a worldwide flu pandemic. The Spanish flu outbreak in 1918 killed more than 40 million worldwide. The Asian flu in 1957 killed 70,000 in the United States alone. The last pandemic, the Hong Kong flu, killed an additional 34,000 Americans. That was 40 years ago.

In addition, the threat of avian flu, which has killed more than 60 percent of the 421 infected people worldwide, mostly in Vietnam and Indonesia, already had disease experts on alert, Katze said. So they reacted to swine flu with an abundance of caution — and warnings to the public. So far, while swine flu appears to spread faster and easier than avian flu, it has been dramatically less deadly....

[Mme. Defarge]

3. AND WE APPRECIATE IT!!! n/t

[Stevenmarc]

4. Souter couldn't distract me, however if Scalia and Alito wanted to give it a try.

[damntexdem]

6. If Scalia and Alito resigned, I'd call it: The Swine Flew!

;-)