As Jonah noted below, the World Health Organization just upgraded its pandemic flu alert level from 4 to 5 — meaning that a pandemic is “imminent.” WHO director Margaret Chan just told reporters, “All countries should immediately now activate their pandemic preparedness plans. It really is all of humanity that is under threat in a pandemic.”
Dr. David Fleming, director of the county health department’s communicable diseases program, is briefing the council’s emergency preparedness on swine flu now; watch it live right here.
Argue for dense urban living now, Stranger.
Go ahead.
(sniff sniff cough)
I knew Obama was going to kill us all! I knew it!
I’m off to buy all the ammo I can find.
The problem isn’t dense urban living, its dense porcine living.
Avian flu, Swine flu–when’s the Tofu flu outbreak coming?
Oh, right, never.
Anyone know the last time it was raised to a 5 and why?
Hannah-
It’s a fairly new escalation system and it is the first time it has gone to “5”. There were other flu alarms in ’75, ’68 and ’57.
Sweet, obviously we’re all going to die and should rush to the nearest hospital if you so much as breathe.
NO, repeat, NO bus rides
What’s the only possible way to prevent all pandemic animal flus? Stop eating animal corpses. Problem solved. Yay!
@9 – um, you’d have to go and slaughter all the baby animals in the world too.
Well?
We expect you to do it personally, by hand.
Speaking of porcine, could Mayor Jowly be the real “patient zero?”