The fact is that the H1N1 virus of today is almost identical to the H1N1 virus back in 1917. It started then as mild, rather ordinary flu that happened to strike the young and healthy as opposed to other strains (the normal seasonal flu) that hit the very young, the aged, or the chronically ill. After a summer of isolated and few deaths, the flu raged back with lethal vengeance over the winter of 1918. During a single week in Philadelphia, 5,000 people died.

Horsedrawn carriages would ride through the streets collecting dead bodies. The amount of dead quickly overwhelmed the ability to bury and bodies were piled dozens of feet high, eventually to be bulldozed into the earth en masse.

Healthy young men would kiss their wives goodbye as the left for work in the morning, and drop dead in the middle of the street as they were heading for lunch breaks. An excerpt from a book review states:

“In this sweeping history, Barry explores how the deadly confluence of biology (a swiftly mutating flu virus that can pass between animals and humans) and politics (President Wilson’s all-out war effort in WWI) created conditions in which the virus thrived, killing more than 50 million worldwide and perhaps as many as 100 million in just a year. Overcrowded military camps and wide-ranging troop deployments allowed the highly contagious flu to spread quickly; transport ships became “floating caskets.” Yet the U.S. government refused to shift priorities away from the war and, in effect, ignored the crisis. Shortages of doctors and nurses hurt military and civilian populations alike, and the ineptitude of public health officials exacerbated the death toll. In Philadelphia, the hardest-hit municipality in the U.S., “the entire city government had done nothing” to either contain the disease or assist afflicted families. Instead, official lies and misinformation, Barry argues, created a climate of “fear… [that] threatened to break the society apart.” Barry captures the sense of panic and despair that overwhelmed stricken communities and hits hard at those who failed to use their power to protect the public good. He also describes the work of the dedicated researchers who rushed to find the cause of the disease and create vaccines. Flu shots are widely available today because of their heroic efforts, yet we remain vulnerable to a virus that can mutate to a deadly strain without warning. Society’s ability to survive another devastating flu pandemic, Barry argues, is as much a political question as a medical one.” http://www.amazon.com/Great-Influenza-Deadliest-Plague-History/dp/0670894737

Rather than doing too much, the current administration is doing too little. We are a nation of 300 million, yet the H1N1 vaccine is only being tested and it’s predicted we’ll only have 45 million doses. One of the reasons for this lack of vaccine is that we never enacted reasonable tort reform and nearly all of our pharmaceutical companies gave up the business of vaccine production to avoid lawsuits. We rely heavily on Great Britain and Switzerland to provide us with most of our vaccine supply.

We hear repeated pleas to wash our hands frequently, but has anybody heard anyone in Obama’s admin informing them that this particular virus survives on surfaces for up to 8 hours? You can wash your hands till the cows come home, but if you’re in school, you’ve also got to wash your desk each time that bell rings and you change classrooms. And what about using handrails when ascending and descending staircases? How do you play football or basketball when touching the ball can pass along a potentially deadly infection? Do those of you who press elevator buttons plan to disinfect them first?

We hear from the Administration to stay home if you feel sick. Well, okay… but do they tell us that people are highly infectious up to 24 hours before they have any symptoms? Do they tell us that if infected, it takes a week before the capacity to infect others is diminished?

So far, it looks as if this strain of H1N1 lacks the component of the previous generation influenza pandemic to become lethal, but it’s too soon to know this. The simple fact that officials are telling us that even under the best of circumstances, we can expect to have only enough vaccine for one out of every seven people is alarming.

We can pray that this strain doesn’t mimic the last and become as lethal. The odds are that it will not. But the odds were against “Mine That Horse” and he won the horse race. The reality is that it’s better to be well-informed so that we can make the decisions that we feel are best for ourselves and our loved ones. I suspect that lacking a Surgeon General as we head into a season of risky uncertainty, the Obama Admin is taking a paternalistic approach and deliberately avoiding releasing full information in order to avoid causing alarm.

The 36 kids that weren’t seen by Dr. Barr who died in the US:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/health/research/04flu-001.html?hpw

I wonder which particular case or code section taught Dr. Barr his particular infectious disease regiment for H1N1:

Stop the hysteria. Take reasonable precautions, and treat those who become ill properly.

Yet somehow here in the United States, the world’s only remaining superpower seems unable to keep a possible outbreak of the flu in proper perspective…Oh well, let’s not let a little irony stand in the way of alarmism.

But some of the children had been perfectly healthy, and died of bacterial infections with staph or strep that set in after the flu.

The 36 who died ranged in age from 2 months to 17 years, with a median age of 9 years. Nearly two-thirds had nervous system disorders like cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy or developmental delays. Children with nerve and muscle problems may be at especially high risk for complications from the flu because they cannot cough hard enough to clear their airways.

These 36 kids dead kids had excellent medical care. It must be tragic that they were seen by Dr. Barr, who no doubt could have conferred “the proper perspective” on their care.

Bob Barr is oblivious to the fact that the promiscuous hording and shotgunning of Tamiflu and Relenza have made H1N1 resistance as high as 60% in some series for both drugs. Maybe Dr. Barr uses witchcraft to treat his patients.

he thinks were still a superpower? WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!

The idea was to slow down the wave, so that those who needed intensive care beds (and there were hundreds) got them. This flu is generally more benign than others, except for a certain percentage of people (such as asthmatics, pregnant women, people with other respiratory problems, and a certain “x%” of otherwise healthy young people). However when these people got sick they got damn sick and a lot of resources had to be thrown at them to keep them alive. The more people who get this at once the more preventable deaths will occur. A bit of prevention and planning will do a lot to minimise death and economic consequences. What is so wrong with that ?

But hey, the conservatives’ plan to address this problem seems pretty sound. Oh wait a minute, that’s right. They don’t have a plan.