Members LeftCoast Posted October 8, 2009 Members Share Posted October 8, 2009 Due to concerns over propagation of H1N1 (swine) flu, the BC Soccer and SportMed BC have a number of recommendations to the Youth Soccer Associations about ways to help avoid the spread of flu. Some of them are quite sensible - don't share water bottles, wash hands, cover your mouth, avoid touching your eyes, etc. but they also recommended that teams use means other than hand shakes, slaps etc. to congratulate opponents or celebrate goals. Okay - not exactly draconian, but maybe a bit over the top. Vancouver Coastal Health has published guidelines to reduce risk of flu infections in the workplace that include: I do consulting work. My business depends on lots of personal contact, meetings, networking and collaboration with other professionals. I also don't think we should be encouraging people to avoid public transit. My wife, in addition to being a professor, works one day per week at the BC Centres for Disease Control to keep her clinical skills up. Staff there are being advised not to take overseas vacations because with the peak of the flu season corresponding with the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver/Whistler they could be called in at any time. Is this starting to sound more and more like the public health version of the Y2K bug? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AluminumNeck Posted October 8, 2009 Members Share Posted October 8, 2009 30-40,000 people die every year from the regular flu.I don;t give that much thought either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members LetsJet Posted October 8, 2009 Members Share Posted October 8, 2009 .......Is this starting to sound more and more like the public health version of the Y2K bug? Not in my opinion...... This is more like a dry run for the bird flu. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jeff da Weasel Posted October 8, 2009 Members Share Posted October 8, 2009 I had H1N1 at the end of April. One of the earlier cases... lucky me. It wasn't fun, but I didn't die either. I've actually had worse flus that lasted much longer. The spike in fever to 103+ had me delirious for about six hours, but after getting treatment, I was back on my feet two days later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members LetsJet Posted October 8, 2009 Members Share Posted October 8, 2009 I had H1N1 at the end of April....... but after getting treatment, I was back on my feet two days later. What treatment did you use? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jeff da Weasel Posted October 8, 2009 Members Share Posted October 8, 2009 What treatment did you use? They gave me an antiviral med called Relenza, and that was about it other than rest, fluids, and Advil. It actually took about a week to really be 100% again, but after two days, I was able to get out of bed and be functional. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members LetsJet Posted October 8, 2009 Members Share Posted October 8, 2009 They gave me an antiviral med called Relenza, and that was about it other than rest, fluids, and Advil. It actually took about a week to really be 100% again, but after two days, I was able to get out of bed and be functional. Got it... Wanted to see if you kicked it on your own, but it appears they gave you the big guns, Relenza. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jeff da Weasel Posted October 8, 2009 Members Share Posted October 8, 2009 Wanted to see if you kicked it on your own, but it appears they gave you the big guns, Relenza. I wish I could have. When I got to the ER that day, I was completely out of my mind with fever. I can laugh about it now, but I emerged from some dream state that morning and was walking around thinking I was refereeing an NBA game. I called a technical foul on the triage nurse. When my fever finally broke, my clothing (including jeans and sweatshirt) was soaked all the way through, like I'd fallen into a pool or something. I also lost five pounds in 24 hours, just through hydration loss. I don't mean to minimize the impact of this flu... my only point being, I did recover, and it just felt like any bad flu. If you're not a young child or an elderly person (or have other significant health problems), getting it won't be fun, but you'll most likely survive. Best bet is just to not get it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members John Sayers Posted October 8, 2009 Members Share Posted October 8, 2009 i thought this letter to the editor in the local paper was on the money Creating symptoms designed to preventHEALTH authorities are investigating why a woman went into anaphylactic shock after receiving a swine flu vaccination (The Age, 8/10). The answer may lie in CSL's information sheet for its Panvax swine flu vaccine. It states that expected adverse reactions after vaccination will be similar to those reported after its seasonal flu vaccine. The incidence of "allergic reactions including anaphylactic shock" was reported to be 1 in 1000 to 1 in 10,000 people. If you roll out all 21 million doses of Panvax purchased by our Government, we can expect to see between 2100 and 21,000 of these "rare" reactions. Even more disturbing, however, is one of the most common reactions: "influenza-like illness", which is reported by "more than or equal to one in 10" recipients of the seasonal flu vaccine. Basic maths reveals we can expect to see at least 2.1 million people with flu-like symptoms, which by definition are the same as the flu. Vic Health also states that "patients with early influenza symptoms have a 60-70 per cent chance of having an influenza infection". That's a lot of people with swine flu! It raises the obvious question: why is our Government spending more than a billion dollars on a vaccine that is expected to create the symptoms it is designed to prevent? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted October 8, 2009 Members Share Posted October 8, 2009 Personally, I would not take the swine flu vaccine, which was rushed through with less careful testing. YMMV. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted October 8, 2009 Members Share Posted October 8, 2009 I wouldn't necessarily take the swine flu lightly, however, particularly with small children or older people or anyone with less developed immune systems. Wash them hands. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members LeftCoast Posted October 8, 2009 Author Members Share Posted October 8, 2009 Not in my opinion...... This is more like a dry run for the bird flu. Comparison to the Y2K bug is not meant to trivialize the flu. Sometimes these over-hyped crisis can be beneficial. If it had not been for Y2K I doubt the general public would have realized how much of our critical public infrastructure (transportation, communications, emergency services, water, electricity, facebook, etc.) is exposed to information security threats. But it needs to be remembered that seasonal flu's kill 250,000 to 500,000 people globally every year. I think the death total for H1N1 is approaching 5000 after 18 months. The Loma Prieta and Northridge earthquakes exposed serious flaws in what were thought to be solid seismic designs of public buildings, roads, bridges and dams. Unfortunately 20 years after the Loma Prieta quake the Bay Bridge remains at risk due to politics and budget crisis. It it hadn't been for the Oklahoma City bombing, the USS Cole attack and the first attempt on the World Trade Centers we would have been totally unprepared for 9/11 .... ah, never mind. I don't mean to trivialize the threat or the plight of those who are or have suffered from H1N1, I do think some of the fear mongering is going over the top. When people make comparisons to the 1918 Spanish Flu that killed some 50 million world wide, they are forgetting is that this flu broke out in the middle of the Great War in which millions of soldiers spent months huddled in close quarters in trenches up to their knees in a soupy mixture of muck, blood and excrement filled water while the civilian population fled their homes and holed up in shelters which were not much better. You couldn't invent better conditions for a pandemic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members veracohr Posted October 8, 2009 Members Share Posted October 8, 2009 A few people in my office had it, and to my knowledge none of them were put on medication of any kind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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