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My college is on full-alert. They're giving daily updates and precautions.
It's all over my student webpage. XD
Swine Flu
Started by Sakura Blossoms, Apr 25 2009 12:03 AM
103 replies to this topic
#61
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#62
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Posted 01 May 2009 - 07:13 AM
FIGURES. 2 confirmed cases in Houston area since this morning. Apparently the baby who passed away from it was in a Houston mall (I think the Galleria? Correct me if I'm wrong kthx) before being hospitalized D:
Super close to one of my colleges B[ fawk.
Also, my mom thinks I have THIS BIG FLU XD I had a long night last night, then had to wake up at the buttcrack of egypt the next day. I complained about "body aches" (which I always whine about when having to wake up after little sleep) and she had just finished finding out the symptoms of this thing. She freaked and almost made me stay in my room, JEEZ MOM. XD
But in all seriousness, this thing isn't killing anybody-- it's weakening the body so other viruses can attack. Reports listed that the lack of medical help in Mexico is what's causing the numbers to rise. Either way, I hope those guys get some help :/
^ dunno if that's been stated or not, sorreh, not keeping up with the news as quick as you guys XD
Super close to one of my colleges B[ fawk.
Also, my mom thinks I have THIS BIG FLU XD I had a long night last night, then had to wake up at the buttcrack of egypt the next day. I complained about "body aches" (which I always whine about when having to wake up after little sleep) and she had just finished finding out the symptoms of this thing. She freaked and almost made me stay in my room, JEEZ MOM. XD
But in all seriousness, this thing isn't killing anybody-- it's weakening the body so other viruses can attack. Reports listed that the lack of medical help in Mexico is what's causing the numbers to rise. Either way, I hope those guys get some help :/
^ dunno if that's been stated or not, sorreh, not keeping up with the news as quick as you guys XD
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Posted 01 May 2009 - 07:10 PM
Yeah, Krisk, I already mentioned it. But it's always good to have other people spread the word. 
Anyway, I thought this article was interesting and worth reading. Geez, as if the fear of the disease wasn't bad enough, people are hating mexicans again.
Anyway, I thought this article was interesting and worth reading. Geez, as if the fear of the disease wasn't bad enough, people are hating mexicans again.
QUOTE
Amid swine flu outbreak, racism goes viral
Anti-immigrant hatred spreads on talk radio, Web sites
“No contact anywhere with an illegal alien!” conservative talk show host Michael Savage advised his U.S. listeners this week on how to avoid the swine flu. “And that starts in the restaurants" where he said, you “don’t know if they wipe their behinds with their hands!”
And Thursday, Boston talk radio host Jay Severin was suspended after calling Mexican immigrants "criminalians" during a discussion of swine flu and saying that emergency rooms had become "essentially condos for Mexicans."
That’s tepid compared to some of the xenophobic reactions spreading like an emerging virus across the Internet. “This disgusting blight is because MEXICANS ARE PIGS!” an anonymous poster ranted on the “prison planet” forum, part of radio host and columnist Alex Jones’ Web site.
There is even talk of conspiracy. Savage speculated that terrorists are using Mexican immigrants as walking germ warfare weapons. “It would be easy,” he said, “to bring an altered virus into Mexico, put it in the general population, and have them march across the border.”
As about 130 cases of H1N1 virus, known as swine flu, have been confirmed across the United States, from San Diego to New York City, the growing public health concern has also exposed fear and hate.
Fear and blame are counterproductive and even dangerous in any disease outbreak because the more stigmatized any group feels, the more reluctant people in that group may be to seek medical care. That only helps propagate the disease.
The attempt to scapegoat Mexicans, immigrants, and Hispanic Americans is no surprise to Latino rights groups, who are now mobilizing a counter-effort.
'Ignorant beyond the pale'
Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, called such comments “racist and ignorant beyond the pale … these so-called commentators shame themselves turning public health concerns into an immigrant bashing fest.”
“What we have seen is that the anti-immigrant groups are using this to shamelessly to promote their agenda,” said Liany Arroyo, director of the Institute for Hispanic Health at the National Council of La Raza.
While the war of words is mainly between the conservative commentariat and Latino advocacy groups, individual Mexican-Americas are beginning to worry.
"Our people are calling us and they are concerned," said Florencia Velasco Fortner, chief executive officer of Dallas Consilio of Hispanic Organizations, an umbrella of affiliated service groups. "Even our staff members are starting to get a little discouraged. There was anti-immigrant sentiment prior to this and this adds fuel to the fire."
The Consilio has mounted its own education campaign to teach Dallas-area Hispanic audiences proper disease prevention and hygiene techniques. Because many are uninsured and may avoid seeking medical care, the Consilio is also helping them find non-profit clinics and encouraging them to visit these immediately if they develop symptoms rather than waiting until they are severely ill.
As swine flu fears have spread, the backlash has also affected some Mexican restaurants' business, possibly fueled by disparaging comments like those of Savage questioning the hygiene of workers.
Jennifer Pesqueira, whose family has owned and operated El Indio Mexican restaurants in San Diego since 1940, said her business has seen a 20 percent drop in business since the outbreak began.
Activist groups have advised their communities to be aware and on guard. “Board members put an alert out,” said Jan Hanvik, executive director of Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center in New York. “It was a heads up, saying ‘pay attention.’”
Blaming 'the other'
Fear mongering and blame are almost a natural part of infectious disease epidemics, experts say.
“This is a pattern we see again and again,” said Amy Fairchild, chair of sociomedical sciences at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health in New York City. “It’s ‘the other,’ the group not seen as part of the nation, the one who threatens it in some way that gets blamed for the disease.”
Often, a disease outbreak is an excuse to vent pre-existing prejudices. “It’s fear of people we do not know or who look different,” said Dr. Howard Markel, a medical historian at the University of Michigan and author of “When Germs Travel: Six Major Epidemics That Have Invaded America Since 1900 and the Fears They Have Unleashed.” “You take the fear of the unknown that already exists and then combine that with a real or perceived threat that is contagious disease and it’s explosive.”
During the medieval Black Plague, Europeans blamed Jews, saying they poisoned the wells. In an 1892 cholera pandemic, the U.S. blamed immigrant European Jews. In the flu of 1918, Markel said, “Italians blamed the Spanish. The Spanish blamed the Italians. For HIV it was gay men and Haitians.”
Americans “have a history of trying to keep ourselves ‘pure,’” Fairchild explained. “You saw it after the Civil War when slaves were denied citizenship, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when we were alarmed over southern and eastern European immigrants. There were fears that they would pollute America’s germ plasm, make us a weak nation of imbeciles.”
Americans have time and again responded to emergencies by clamoring to shut the borders and pull up the bridges.
“I’ve blogged for years about the spread of contagious diseases from around the world into the U.S. as a result of uncontrolled immigration,” conservative columnist Michelle Malkin wrote on her Web site. “9/11 didn’t convince the open-borders zealots to put down their race cards and confront reality. Maybe the threat of their sons or daughters contracting a deadly virus spread from south of the border to their Manhattan prep schools will.” (The cluster of New York school students who first contracted H1N1 brought the virus back from Mexico. The school is in Queens.)
"People who do not really know anything are creating ideas that don't really exist," said Sergio Ornelas, owner of a bi-national publishing and advertising business in El Paso. "I am worried these kinds of articles and comments might create panic.”
Fighting racism with information
Blame-the-victim reactions can be fought with clear, accurate information about the disease and about how it is spreading, said Dr. Larry Kline, a San Diego physician and member of the United States-Mexico Border Health Commission. “People get snippets of information here and there, and unfortunately much of it is inaccurate. That makes things ripe for blame and blame and fear never helped anybody.”
Tamping down blame and fear isn’t just the right thing to do morally, experts agree, it’s also the right thing to do medically. Germs, Markel stressed, don’t care about skin color or national origins or borders.
“These are naturally occurring events,” he said. “We expect flu pandemics every 30 to 40 years. It’s the cost of living in a world of emerging infectious diseases. That’s the folly of prejudice. They are wherever humans are.”
Anti-immigrant hatred spreads on talk radio, Web sites
“No contact anywhere with an illegal alien!” conservative talk show host Michael Savage advised his U.S. listeners this week on how to avoid the swine flu. “And that starts in the restaurants" where he said, you “don’t know if they wipe their behinds with their hands!”
And Thursday, Boston talk radio host Jay Severin was suspended after calling Mexican immigrants "criminalians" during a discussion of swine flu and saying that emergency rooms had become "essentially condos for Mexicans."
That’s tepid compared to some of the xenophobic reactions spreading like an emerging virus across the Internet. “This disgusting blight is because MEXICANS ARE PIGS!” an anonymous poster ranted on the “prison planet” forum, part of radio host and columnist Alex Jones’ Web site.
There is even talk of conspiracy. Savage speculated that terrorists are using Mexican immigrants as walking germ warfare weapons. “It would be easy,” he said, “to bring an altered virus into Mexico, put it in the general population, and have them march across the border.”
As about 130 cases of H1N1 virus, known as swine flu, have been confirmed across the United States, from San Diego to New York City, the growing public health concern has also exposed fear and hate.
Fear and blame are counterproductive and even dangerous in any disease outbreak because the more stigmatized any group feels, the more reluctant people in that group may be to seek medical care. That only helps propagate the disease.
The attempt to scapegoat Mexicans, immigrants, and Hispanic Americans is no surprise to Latino rights groups, who are now mobilizing a counter-effort.
'Ignorant beyond the pale'
Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, called such comments “racist and ignorant beyond the pale … these so-called commentators shame themselves turning public health concerns into an immigrant bashing fest.”
“What we have seen is that the anti-immigrant groups are using this to shamelessly to promote their agenda,” said Liany Arroyo, director of the Institute for Hispanic Health at the National Council of La Raza.
While the war of words is mainly between the conservative commentariat and Latino advocacy groups, individual Mexican-Americas are beginning to worry.
"Our people are calling us and they are concerned," said Florencia Velasco Fortner, chief executive officer of Dallas Consilio of Hispanic Organizations, an umbrella of affiliated service groups. "Even our staff members are starting to get a little discouraged. There was anti-immigrant sentiment prior to this and this adds fuel to the fire."
The Consilio has mounted its own education campaign to teach Dallas-area Hispanic audiences proper disease prevention and hygiene techniques. Because many are uninsured and may avoid seeking medical care, the Consilio is also helping them find non-profit clinics and encouraging them to visit these immediately if they develop symptoms rather than waiting until they are severely ill.
As swine flu fears have spread, the backlash has also affected some Mexican restaurants' business, possibly fueled by disparaging comments like those of Savage questioning the hygiene of workers.
Jennifer Pesqueira, whose family has owned and operated El Indio Mexican restaurants in San Diego since 1940, said her business has seen a 20 percent drop in business since the outbreak began.
Activist groups have advised their communities to be aware and on guard. “Board members put an alert out,” said Jan Hanvik, executive director of Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center in New York. “It was a heads up, saying ‘pay attention.’”
Blaming 'the other'
Fear mongering and blame are almost a natural part of infectious disease epidemics, experts say.
“This is a pattern we see again and again,” said Amy Fairchild, chair of sociomedical sciences at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health in New York City. “It’s ‘the other,’ the group not seen as part of the nation, the one who threatens it in some way that gets blamed for the disease.”
Often, a disease outbreak is an excuse to vent pre-existing prejudices. “It’s fear of people we do not know or who look different,” said Dr. Howard Markel, a medical historian at the University of Michigan and author of “When Germs Travel: Six Major Epidemics That Have Invaded America Since 1900 and the Fears They Have Unleashed.” “You take the fear of the unknown that already exists and then combine that with a real or perceived threat that is contagious disease and it’s explosive.”
During the medieval Black Plague, Europeans blamed Jews, saying they poisoned the wells. In an 1892 cholera pandemic, the U.S. blamed immigrant European Jews. In the flu of 1918, Markel said, “Italians blamed the Spanish. The Spanish blamed the Italians. For HIV it was gay men and Haitians.”
Americans “have a history of trying to keep ourselves ‘pure,’” Fairchild explained. “You saw it after the Civil War when slaves were denied citizenship, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when we were alarmed over southern and eastern European immigrants. There were fears that they would pollute America’s germ plasm, make us a weak nation of imbeciles.”
Americans have time and again responded to emergencies by clamoring to shut the borders and pull up the bridges.
“I’ve blogged for years about the spread of contagious diseases from around the world into the U.S. as a result of uncontrolled immigration,” conservative columnist Michelle Malkin wrote on her Web site. “9/11 didn’t convince the open-borders zealots to put down their race cards and confront reality. Maybe the threat of their sons or daughters contracting a deadly virus spread from south of the border to their Manhattan prep schools will.” (The cluster of New York school students who first contracted H1N1 brought the virus back from Mexico. The school is in Queens.)
"People who do not really know anything are creating ideas that don't really exist," said Sergio Ornelas, owner of a bi-national publishing and advertising business in El Paso. "I am worried these kinds of articles and comments might create panic.”
Fighting racism with information
Blame-the-victim reactions can be fought with clear, accurate information about the disease and about how it is spreading, said Dr. Larry Kline, a San Diego physician and member of the United States-Mexico Border Health Commission. “People get snippets of information here and there, and unfortunately much of it is inaccurate. That makes things ripe for blame and blame and fear never helped anybody.”
Tamping down blame and fear isn’t just the right thing to do morally, experts agree, it’s also the right thing to do medically. Germs, Markel stressed, don’t care about skin color or national origins or borders.
“These are naturally occurring events,” he said. “We expect flu pandemics every 30 to 40 years. It’s the cost of living in a world of emerging infectious diseases. That’s the folly of prejudice. They are wherever humans are.”
#64
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Posted 01 May 2009 - 08:57 PM
I guess we have to change the name of this thread to Influenza A (H1N1) now so people don't get the wrong impression and stop buying pork products lol
Yotsubato! - Enjoy Everything!
#65
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Posted 01 May 2009 - 10:04 PM
QUOTE
ATLANTA – The swine flu virus that has frightened the world is beginning to look a little less ominous. New York City officials reported Friday that the swine flu still has not spread beyond a few schools. In Mexico, very few relatives of flu victims seem to have caught the virus.
One flu expert says there's no reason to believe the new virus is a more serious strain than seasonal flu. And a federal health official said the new flu virus doesn't appear to have genes that made the 1918 pandemic flu strain so deadly.
It's too soon to draw any definitive conclusions about what this variation of the H1N1 virus will do. Experts say the only wise course is to prepare for the worst. But in a world that's been rattled by the specter of a global pandemic, glimmers of hope are welcome.
President Obama noted Friday that it's not clear that the swine flu outbreak will turn out to be any worse than ordinary flu.
"It may turn out that H1N1 runs its course like ordinary flus, in which case we will have prepared and we won't need all these preparations," Obama said.
But "we're taking it seriously," he said. Even if the flu turns out mild now, it could come back in a deadlier form during the normal flu season, he said.
One flu expert says there's no reason to believe the new virus is a more serious strain than seasonal flu. And a federal health official said the new flu virus doesn't appear to have genes that made the 1918 pandemic flu strain so deadly.
It's too soon to draw any definitive conclusions about what this variation of the H1N1 virus will do. Experts say the only wise course is to prepare for the worst. But in a world that's been rattled by the specter of a global pandemic, glimmers of hope are welcome.
President Obama noted Friday that it's not clear that the swine flu outbreak will turn out to be any worse than ordinary flu.
"It may turn out that H1N1 runs its course like ordinary flus, in which case we will have prepared and we won't need all these preparations," Obama said.
But "we're taking it seriously," he said. Even if the flu turns out mild now, it could come back in a deadlier form during the normal flu season, he said.
This is good news as it has finally reached South Florida, most specifically Broward County which is my county, with two confirmed cases so far.
#66
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Posted 02 May 2009 - 06:40 PM
QUOTE (Sakura Blossoms @ May 1 2009, 05:04 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
This is good news as it has finally reached South Florida, most specifically Broward County which is my county, with two confirmed cases so far.
I glad too I was getting a little bit on my nerves
#67
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#68
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Posted 02 May 2009 - 10:19 PM
From what I hear the pork industry has requested that the name of the virus be changed to it's scientific designation. Can't say I blame them, although so far not one pig infected with the virus has been found.
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Posted 03 May 2009 - 12:39 AM
#70
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Posted 03 May 2009 - 02:40 AM
Uh... you guys do realize that the virus didn't actually came from pigs or pork products?
What's Happening with the Naruto series as of now!
#71
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Posted 03 May 2009 - 03:30 AM
True, but when they heard swine flu, well...
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Posted 04 May 2009 - 09:52 PM
Apparently it made its way to a middle school near where I live.
#73
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Posted 04 May 2009 - 10:05 PM
my school is suspending school for two weeks and they canceled my damn prom!
THE ISSUE with this flu, which is almost harmless at this point, just very contagious, is that it very well may mutate into a deadly flu and hit again this winter. this is exactly what happened with the Spanish flu in 1918(the one that killed more people than both world wars combined).
P.S im banishing Egypt to Isla Stupido, they apparently went through the country and killed all their pigs. lol
THE ISSUE with this flu, which is almost harmless at this point, just very contagious, is that it very well may mutate into a deadly flu and hit again this winter. this is exactly what happened with the Spanish flu in 1918(the one that killed more people than both world wars combined).
P.S im banishing Egypt to Isla Stupido, they apparently went through the country and killed all their pigs. lol
Edited by jworks, 04 May 2009 - 10:05 PM.
#74
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Posted 04 May 2009 - 10:20 PM
Ugh were starting to get more and more suspected cases in Florida on this stupid flu and i'm starting to get a bit scared with this. I'm pretty sure a pandemic, no matter how minor it is, would be rather depressing and frustrating in this time period. Buisnesses would shut down, causing bad money fluctuations that no buisiness would want, not to mention the possible fatalities, as well as schools shutting down. Sure that sounds fine, but my school is strick about making up for losses. We'll be stuck in school during summer break, shortening our already shortened break.
I just hope this passes over with the least amount of troubles and problems as possible.
I just hope this passes over with the least amount of troubles and problems as possible.
Get Chance and Luck!!~
#75
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Posted 05 May 2009 - 12:58 AM
Let us pray ZMan...
#76
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Posted 05 May 2009 - 11:29 PM
QUOTE (jworks @ May 4 2009, 06:05 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
P.S im banishing Egypt to Isla Stupido, they apparently went through the country and killed all their pigs. lol
Egypt is 90% Muslim so it's pretty obvious they would get rid of pigs if something such as swine flu was a cause for concern.
#77
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Posted 05 May 2009 - 11:44 PM
I'm up in illinois (chicago land area) and our school has a confirmed case. LOL swine flu.
#78
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Posted 06 May 2009 - 12:08 AM
QUOTE (jworks @ May 4 2009, 06:05 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
P.S im banishing Egypt to Isla Stupido, they apparently went through the country and killed all their pigs. lol
Anyways. They set up automatic sanitizer dispensers all around my college. Funny. The school is dead because its summer, I'm only there for 3 months taking summer courses, so I doubt the dispensers get used much...
But still good to take the precaution.
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Posted 06 May 2009 - 02:53 AM
QUOTE (True @ May 5 2009, 05:29 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Egypt is 90% Muslim so it's pretty obvious they would get rid of pigs if something such as swine flu was a cause for concern.
I also conveniently left out the fact that i am also on Isla Stupido...
#80
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Posted 06 May 2009 - 01:56 PM
Even as the flu wanes, the first non-Mexican casualty has occurred. A Texan woman is reported to have officially died from the flu.
She was so young too
She was so young too
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