I don’t want to be an alarmist but AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
The World Health Organization has just raised the flu threat level from phase 4 to phase 5, indicating a pandemic is “imminent.”
“Phase 5 is characterized by human-to-human spread of the virus into at least two countries in one WHO region. While most countries will not be affected at this stage, the declaration of Phase 5 is a strong signal that a pandemic is imminent and that the time to finalize the organization, communication, and implementation of the planned mitigation measures is short.
Erica Barnett is ready.
UPDATE: The King County Health Department is briefing the City Council on swine flu right now.
We’ll have updates in a few. In the meantime, check out the piece Erica and I wrote this week about the gaps in the state’s pandemic preparedness plan.
i have a stuffy nose and live next to a jaliscos
FUCK
My employer, a large telecom concern, has just instituted their Pandemic Core Team to gear up fora spike in swine flu-related communication.
Jen Graves, on the other hand, is not.
She gets fatter every day.
When was the last time WHO raised it to level 5?
Good thing I walked to work today instead of taking the bus.
*cough cough*
isn’t that a mask used for dust and construction?
The 1918 flu mortality rate was 2.5. Seattle’s population is estimated at 582,174 so our toll would be 14,555. This also works out to 1 in 40.
You probably know 120 people. This time next year 117 of them will still be around. You will probably know at least 3 victims. On the bright side your chance of surviving is 97.5 percent.
My plan while riding the L tomorrow is to cough uncontrollably on as many people in the car as I can. I think I can get Chicago into a right panic. Oh, and get myself beat up in the process. But it’ll be worth it.
In all of the arguments made for urban living, surviving a pandemic never seems to come up…
@9 you assume a 100% infection rate. Seems optimistic.
@9 also assumes it’s still 1918.
For those just joining us #9 is full of shit.
Has Erica put on some weight?
Erica is all stocked up on stolen wine to drink the flu away?
Erica, for all her faults is a total babe.
This much I am willing to admit.
12-
13-
I offered it as a historical comparison. Seattle’s population is only a guesstimate. The infection rate will be less than 100% but, the mortality rate is also unknown. It is still 1918 if you don’t have or can’t get healthcare.
The fatalities, like 1918, have clustered around the young and healthy which means hipsters will bear the brunt of it. My guess is that smokers (active and former) will get it the worst as their lungs are already damaged. It will be intresting to see if there is a corelation in fatality rates to smoking ban states and countries.
Now let’s start the threads of magical herbal cures and conspiracy theories.
those masks don’t do shit for viruses
Erica’s ready to sand her deck or something, but that mask won’t keep virii out.
@ 18 “It is still 1918 if you don’t have or can’t get healthcare.”
No it isn’t. These days even people without healthcare know to wash their hands.
yes, and it is EXACTLY like 1918…I believe I’m going to amble down to the trolley barn and peruse me a copy of the Saturday Evening Post while I wait for the chemist to prepare my linement prescription…
and,
can we find a mask for ECB’s hands so she can’t type? Tell her that keyboards are breeding grounds for all sorts of animalistic flu viruses…
11 You got that right I think we’re already on the pandemic stage and the government just doesn’t want to tell us. 🙁
@9: Actually, every estimate points at less than a quarter of what you’re proposing in Seattle, and that’s a highly pessimistic projection based on 1918 figures.
This is good, however, in that it allows us to request and obtain more than a standard share of Tamiflu.
The mask does one useful thing- it makes it harder to touch your mouth or face with your hands.
Why don’t you hold me like you used to?
@17 yes she is! I’d hit it two times.
I would so totally bone ECB.
My stomach has been hurting and I woke up with a sore throat. I don’t have a fever, so I am pretty sure I’m fine. But the tower I work in is loaded with doctor offices…so….. who knows.
But on the off chance the pigs got me (now a whole new meaning to that phrase) I will have also infect Sam, Jonah, and recently “doctored” Golob. Nice.
@29, hehe, “the pigs got me”
and OMG Erica is adorable.
Wow, Erica is pretty fuckable.
i want to headbutt most of the commenters in the mouth. you know which ones.
Tell Erica she needs to bend the little metal thingy downward over the bridge of her nose and then gently outward over her cheekbones, as the masks apparently come shaped for Asian faces. Otherwise the inspired air gets mainly sucked through the gap between the upper edges of the mask and the cheekbones, bypassing the filtering material.
And yes, of course, the mask doesn’t stop viruses. What it does stop is a large percentage of the virus-containing mist particles coughed or sneezed out by the virus factories in you vicinity. Viruses don’t travel singly through the air.
Is that the mask she wears to liberate bottles of wine from QFC?
@ 20: Well I’d like to sand her deck, and then some. rowrr.
Erica looks all ready to start stripping those hardwood floors.
Does anybody know where you can get the cheapo paper surgical masks?
ECB is all excited because she misheard and so she’s preparing for WINE Flu…
Germ Theory is just that, a “theory”. Intellegent humors should be discussed here and taught in our schools!
Masks aren’t used to protect YOU. They protect others FROM you. Your coughs are contained, which means if you have the virus, it stays on your mask (until the next time you touch it, of course).
Even if you’re wearing a mask, people coughing or breathing near you are still coating you top to bottom with virus, and you’ll be picking it up with your hands and taking it to your mouth, nose, eyes, ears.
@ 17, 27, & 28 – You know what? It’s really cool to see you straight boys speaking up!
Me, I want that black sequined mask that Michael Jackson wore for a while back in the 90’s.
33 she leaves it that way so she can sip wine around the edges,…
“Reach for the sky!”
There must be a hole in the fence…
that is the sexiest fucking thing i’ve ever seen.
Re: 39…You’re mistaken, fnarf, dear. Masks can, indeed, protect others from YOU, but they also prevent you from inhaling the virus-laden droplets that others cough out. We use them in the hospital, all the time, to prevent health care workers from picking up the bugs of our patients. An ordinary surgical mask (paper, rather flimsy) is part of the CDC-recommended personal protective equipment for health care workers trying not to catch flus from their patients.
45
a mask won’t keep every airborne particle out but will keep you from getting pelted in the mouth and nose with particles of virus and germ laden spittle, sputum and mucus.
@40
Did you guys notice Erica’s heaving bossom tugging at the blouse and the strained buttons trying to keep her girls contained?
Yaousee!!
Actually, @12, it has been estimated by epidemiologists that by the end of the 1918 flu epidemic every man, woman and child on the fact of the planet had been infected–many of them asymptomatically. For a superb read on this topic, check out “The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History”by Thomas M. Berry.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-Influenza-…
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The W.H.O. is full of shit. They are a group of mutually appointed drug company ass kissing doctors and scientists who need jobs. There is no danger to flu spreading. It always has and will. The danger is in polution that has destroyed our immune system. This year 250,000-500,000 people will die of other flus and you don’t seee us not traveling because of that. Politicians who believe all this shit and don’t take reality as it is are stupid. Also the WHO is manipulated by the richest countries on the planet. They usually fuck up their predictions and have people live in fear. I would worry more about the next earthquake or Tsunami. Those are coming because of the way we treat the planet. People like to live in fear now so enjoy your SWINE FLU. It will pass shortly until the next flavour of fear the media and scientists think up for us comes on TV. If we stop listening to the scientists I bet the planet will heal and do better. If you are worried about catching a cold or flu then WASH YOUR HANDS! The masks are bullshit.