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Yes, cleanliness is your best defence. Wash hands lots of times. Especially when handling an item that is handled like a microphone. Soap and water works best, Purel or like products are anti-bacterial and are ineffective against a virus, so do not waste your money. AND LOSE THE MIC SOCKS!! These are ideal habitats for germs and viruses. I would also replace the inner foam as well once in a while.

Ah it's no big thing, we are all dead Dec 21st, 2012 anyway if you believe in the Mayan (and several others) calanders.
We have 6 confirmed cases of Swine in WA as of yesterday. Several schools in the Seattle area are closing for a few days.

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There's what now a little over 200 dead because of this flu and they make it sound like a disaster, yet nothing about regular flu that kills over 500,000 yearly. And now they aren't even calling it Swine Flu anymore.

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They probably stopped calling it swine flu because of the totally unrelated "panic" to kill pigs in some countries. I heard Egypt wants to kill all their pigs, and Iraq is killing some boars in their zoos.... Other countries are banning import of pork meat, and that is largely an excuse for trade protectionism.

Pigs, and pork have NOTHING to do with the disease at this stage, I doubt pigs are even a good vector for the disease anymore.

From what I understand about the virus it is a combination of a Pig, Human and Bird virus, and the combination with a Human virus is what makes it a danger to us. At this stage it may no longer spread efficciently through pigs.

Just another example of mindless panic.

Yeah, Mexico is such a cold place!

Eh? Spread through pigs? Not something to worry about. The only time there is even an alert is once the flu has sustained transmission from human to human. Here are the pandemic phases the World Health Organization uses:

Phase 1 - Animals have it, there is no reported transmission from animal to human

Phase 2/3 - Verified transmission to humans with phase 3 being identified outbreaks caused by either animal to human or human to human sustained at a community level.

Phase 4 - Verified human to human spread is sustained at the community level. This is where the animal vector is eliminated.

Phase 5 - Human to Human spread of the virus in two or more countries in one WHO region.

Phase 6 - Human to human spread of the virus in two or more WHO regions.

Pandemics are not sustained by animal-human transmission and the name of the flu typically doesn't have anything to do with it's origin. The 1918 Spanish flu was probably brought by some farm boy in the US to Europe during the war and ravaged France before making it to Spain. However since Spain had less censorship it was reported there first and hence it's the Spanish Flu outbreak of 1918 and not the Long Island Duck Flu of 1918.

Mexico is a big country not all of it is hot all the time. Mexico city has a high altitude and is often cooler. For several days last month the high temps in Mexico City (where the disease is) Was only in the mid 60s which does not qualify as really hot in anyones eyes (or cold for that matter either). Some days got as cool as 48F. Other days last month the temps were in the mid 80s and that probably did save some people from getting infected.

Actually the virus survival is linked to absolute humidity, so a cold dry day is what lets it survive and spread, virus survival times are much lower in hot humid days.

So we are fortunate summer is near. As for mexico city last month was quite dry as well (0.16 inch) of rain so that helped with the dry air that helps the virus spread.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/163 ... flu_virus/

Sure 200 people died in Mexico last week from it...but what the news neglects to mention is that there were over 10,000 deaths in Mexico City that same week (total) from ALL causes. 200 in a city of 10 Million is not an epidemic. More people will die from Smoking today than from Swine Flue all year, yet nobody panics about that.

I saw the ultimate in panic today on my drive to work. I saw a man in his car, alone, on the interstate...with a mask on.

[quote="Lonman @ Fri May 01, 2009 4:57 am"]Ah it's no big thing, we are all dead Dec 21st, 2012 anyway if you believe in the Mayan (and several others) calanders.
quote]

....and if that doesn't happen, an asteroid will be flying by the Earth for a "near miss" April 13, 2029. I put "near miss" in quotes, because it will be so close that it will pass UNDER our communication satellites- supposedly. However, in terms of cosmic distances, if it's current flight varies even minutely on it's 20 year passage to us, I wouldn't bet on that miss.

Oh yeah, if it DOES miss, it returns on the same date in 2036......

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Actually they started killing pigs after, because of the name, not the other way around.

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If you've ever lived in Mexico, Central, or south America, you will understand the high death rate from even the most benign of illnesses. We had workers who even when sick with curable conditions would avoid the hospital because everyone knew if you went to the hospital you would die. Of course you will if you're beyond cure. Hygiene is nonexistent in the slums of those cities. People eat out of garbage cans and public dumps. There is effluence running in the streets; many streets are public urinals. There are rotting carcassses lying about, at least the ones the vultures haven't gotten to yet. Bacteria grows at an incredible speed because of the climate conditions - everyone is warm to hot all the time. Very few refrigerators in the roadside cafes - lucky to find a cold Coke (which by the way, if taken at a dosage of one 12-ounce bottle daily, will stave off the turistas). So, geesh, if this pandemic started in Mexico, it is no wonder.

Just read this...Love it.


Swine Flu Panic...of 1976. - http://tinyurl.com/df7bja

OK this is just what I've picked up from reading about this. I'm not a medical geek, an immunologist, or anything.

The reason for all the concern is because this is a new strain of flu that has jumped over species lines. Whenever that happens, there is the potential for humans to have no natural immunities to it, as we do with seasonal human flus.

So far it appears that the cases here in the US have been mild. But that could change because all flu strains mutate over time.

They will try to slow it's spread, even if it's in a mild form, so it won't have the opportunity to mutate as fast. That gives us better odds of developing a vaccine, which is 6 months off. Even a vaccine for this strain should give partial immunity to a mutated form if one turns up deadly.

Or they might just throw the vaccines out if the virus dies out on its own. But in my book it's better to have it around. Just in case.

If any of this is wrong correct me. I'm just a dumb KJ.

My fiancee went on a trip by plane to see a friend for his 40th birthday. He came back with cold like symtoms. When he went to work Wednesday fellow workers were panicking he may have the Swine Flu, so his boss asked him to go get tested. He called his doctor and he sent him to the emergency room. Well, after having to pay a $200 copay to his insurance, he finds out it was just a cold. Boy was he ticked!

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Actually the reason it has only mildly affected Canadian, Americans, etc is because most, if not all of us have had numerous vaccinations during our lives, whereas, I daresay, Mexicans have not.

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Babs

If you have some singers that are a little LEARY of using the mics - you may want to go out and get some cheap foam wind screens and give them out to individual singers --This way they have THEIR own and not touching the mic directly.

You should be able to find them for about $1.25 each

That sounds like a really good system, Babs. I've noticed handi-wipes at the library where I do computer work, and at the grocery store for shopping carts. Not just for swine flu (which yes, has been vastly overhyped as a world-ender), but for any bugs. And yes, it bugs the hell out of me when someone comes to karaoke sniffling and coughing. Egad! Take a night off, Typhoid Mary!

My KJ is so cautious about this that she wouldn't hug me the other day when I had a sore throat. I explained that it was the result of shouting at a baseball game (a decidedly non-viral problem), but she just wouldn't buy it.

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we live in an amazing age of technology where all kinds of information can be organized and compared.

Litterally 20 years ago we would not even have had the information organized enough to realize we were having an epidemic, just scattered people here and there that got sick. Even 10 years ago we might only just be noticing it now a couple weeks later than the epidemic was detected this time.

Mexico, and especially Mexico city is not as poor as the stereotype. A lot of people there live reasonably well (materially). While slums exist the situation is improving rapidly over the last 20 years in terms of many material standards of wealth. In terms of per capita income the average Mexican earns 3-4 times as much as the average person from Guatemala or many of the more poor countries of the world.

As for vaccinations, with the flu it changes so fast that vaccinations not prepared for a specific strain have little effect most of the time. The whole reason for the panic is that this is a "new" strain.

You aren't dumb Bill, but you may be much younger than me.

It's not a NEW strain of flu, it came around around before during the Bicentennial, I believe. Maybe it was just before or after- I was busy partying so not all that sure.

It was a mild strain then too. However, people got panicky then as well. They tried to come up with a vaccine then, and if I recall correctly, it did more harm then good. Then the Swine Flu went away...

You are correct about people getting nervous because it's a species jumper, but it seems to be a weak strain. Also, there are a LOT of diseases out there more deadly then influenza that have jumped species- including STDs! ( I don't even wanna think about it...)

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"No Contests, No Divas, Just A Good Time!"

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Yeah, and the human body is also very cold