Pandemic?

[LuvOrlando]

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[horseshowmom]

Our schools have not sent home any information....yet.
I hope the teachers are encouraging hand washing and have antibacterial gel avaialbe (we parents should each pitch in and buy some for the class). Kids do need to be reminded a lot. Some kids don't learn this at home. Or they forget.

The schools in our district (I'm in Mississippi) are wiping down all surfaces with Clorox at the end of every day. The students are using hand sanitizer regularly. Children are being reminded about covering their mouths when they sneeze or cough and washing their hands regularly. Anybody with any fever or possible flu symptoms are to be sent to the office to go home immediately.

 

[mommy*RN]

Our schools have not sent home any information....yet.
I hope the teachers are encouraging hand washing and have antibacterial gel avaialbe (we parents should each pitch in and buy some for the class). Kids do need to be reminded a lot. Some kids don't learn this at home. Or they forget.

Excellent idea! It's been added to my shopping list! Thanks.

 

[pennymom]

If anyone buys hand sanitizer, try to find the one that has 60% or more alcohol as the active ingredient. I forget what the alternative active ingredient is, but germs can develop a resistance to it. They also make alcohol based hand wipes for kids to put into lunchboxes.

 

[LuvOrlando]

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[carissanboys]

Part of the supplies we send in at the beginning of the school year are hand santizer so I know our school is pretty well stocked.

My 2nd grader told me his teacher always has them use the santizer before they go to lunch.

I do worry about it a bit though since my kids are big "fingers in the mouth" kids and is that stuff really good for them to have in their mouths??

 

[taximomfor4]

They might welcome the extra money in this economy.

And, I agree, the closings won't help. Any virus in the schools would have been dead by the time we got the call last night. But, what are the districts going to do? Surrounding districts are closing. If they didn't close and someone got really sick or god forbid, died, the parents would all blame the district. Even if there were other circumstances that played in the illness or death.

According to this site: http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Pandemic-flu/Pages/QA.aspx#Howlong


The flu virus can live on a hard surface for up to 24 hours, and a soft surface for around 20 minutes.

 

[Christine]

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090430/D97T2ALO1.html

So this just told me that the CDC is overwhelmed and can't keep up with testing so I can only assume the numbers of reported cases are deceivingly low. Further if it does pick up momentum in one region over another they will have no way of knowing - AND - how will they know if there are further mutations among the rank and file if they are throwing up their hands at the volume? How is this acceptable?

Ugggh, this is their job isn't it, between them and the WHO... how can they be unprepared when this is ALL they are supposed to do, test, evaluate, report, advise - test, evaluate, report advise... over and over again???

I want to hear good news but I want it to be valid and from the medical community not some politician afraid of angering the travel or pork lobbies.... sigh...

The problem is probably due to the panic. The CDC appears to handle the usual flu season just fine. That's because no one is in a panic and running to the ER demanding a swab. Right now, as you can see by reports on this thread, ERs are swamped, people are showing up with kids that are asymptomatic, etc. I'm sure the CDC is receiving far more samples than they are used to getting.

 

[mommy*RN]

On my way to pick my DD up from preschool they did a public service announcement stating that Oconomowoc High School is being closed immediately and parents should respond to pick their children up. I didn't hear the whole story as I was already a bit late picking my DD up. Here is what the news is reporting.

Oconomowoc High School, two middle schools closed due to concern over swine flu
Schools to be closed for seven days
Staff Writer
May 1, 2009

WITI-TV, OCONOMOWOC - Waukesha County officials closed Oconomowoc High School as well as two middle schools, Nature Hill and Silver Lake, due to concern over swine flu. A student at one of the schools is considered a probable case of swine flu.

Julianne Klimetz from the Waukesha Co. Health Department says the student recently visited an area of Mexico where infections have been reported.

Officials in the Oconomowoc School District say all three schools will remain closed for seven days -- through Friday, May 8.

Two other cases in Waukesha county are also considered probable for the virus. None of the three cases are related by family or by contact.

Strange they waited until midday to close the school, but I'm sure there was a reason for it.

In other news:

New Berlin Company Sells Special Decontamination Devices With Power To Kill Swine Flu Virus
Special misting device can be from 99.4 to 99.9 percent effective in killing millions of microbes of the swine flu virus
(I live in New Berlin!!)

http://www.fox6now.com/news/witi-090430-swine-flu-mist,0,6596107.story
New Berlin Company Sells Special Decontamination Devices With Power To Kill Swine Flu Virus

 

[LuvOrlando]

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[mommy*RN]

According to this site: http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Pandemic-flu/Pages/QA.aspx#Howlong


The flu virus can live on a hard surface for up to 24 hours, and a soft surface for around 20 minutes.

Well...I'm a "soft surface" so I should be okay!

 

[daisax]

There was one case suspected at the Harvard Dental School and today the Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health (all in a couple of blocks' radius) have cancelled classes and asked students to not go to the hospitals for their clerkships or other activities. They are encouraged to stay home and refrain from participating in public activities.

And Boston University closed their Mexican study abroad program in Guadalajara and instructed the students there to return home and not to campus.

 

[pennymom]

The flu virus can live on a hard surface for up to 24 hours, and a soft surface for around 20 minutes.

I read yesterday that it can live on a hard surface 24-48 hours, and a porous surface 12 hours.

 

[taximomfor4]

Well...I'm a "soft surface" so I should be okay!

Me too. Good thing all my efforts to become a "hard surface" have been for naught, so far!!

 

[taximomfor4]

I read yesterday that it can live on a hard surface 24-48 hours, and a porous surface 12 hours.

EIther way, my main point was that it flus tend to survive on surfaces for longer than some other viruses. So disinfecting the school CAN be useful. BTW, I am getting a bit of a sore throat.

To answer a pp, about whether our kids' schools are sending home letters yet...nope, they just sent home yet another copy of the same attendance/illess policy that they've sent home for years. Basically, mild colds you send kids to school. Fever, vomiting, or diarrhea in past 24 hrs, keep them home. Strep, any communicable disease involving rash, etc, keep them home.

 

[Obi-Wan Pinobi]

Ok.. well, a case of the swine or whatever they want us to call it now flu has been confirmed in the county that we live in.

DW Lauri has been nagging me to stop my life long habit of biting my nails but it's been so hard to stop doing something you've done for so long. This might be just what I need to make me stop, though.

Question about this flu, as I'm not well versed on who is high risk. DW Lauri has an autoimmune disease that has caused her to have a highly overactive immune system. So much that she has never had a cold, never had the flu, has been exposed to chicken pox numerous times, etc. Even touched my shingles when I had them, before we knew what they were. (she was poking them saying "does this hurt? this?, how 'bout this? ) Is this one of those types of flu that causes your immune system to go into overdrive, like they were saying the bird flu from a few years ago was? And if it is, that makes this dangerous for Lauri, correct?

Thanks in advance

 

[mommy*RN]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20090501/sc_livescience/worstcasescenarioforfluestimated

'Worst Case' Scenario for Flu Estimated

Robin Lloyd
LiveScience Senior Editor
LiveScience.com robin Lloyd
livescience Senior Editor
livescience.com – 2 hrs 42 mins ago
There will be about 1,700 U.S. cases of the new H1N1 flu, aka "swine flu," in the next four weeks under a worst-case scenario, according to a research team's new simulations.

And a second team working independently, about 200 miles away, on exactly the same question came up with a similar forecast.


As of Thursday, there were 109 lab-confirmed U.S. cases of the new influenza, according to the World Health Organization, which earlier this week raised the risk level of the influenza to one stage below pandemic because the virus is being transmitted within at least two countries in one region of the world. A full pandemic - the virus is also being transmitted within a third country in a different region - is considered imminent.


It is not clear, however, how virulent or deadly this flu strain will become. Flu viruses are unpredictable, and while some in history have proven incredibly deadly, many would-be-pandemics turned out to be quite mild. Also, medicine and public health are more sophisticated today, in terms of treatments and educational campaigns, than they were during the nation's last pandemic flu in 1968, let alone during the Spanish flu of 1918.


Still, researchers are eager to predict what might happen and Dirk Brockmann has identified the hotspots.


California, Texas and Florida will have most of the cases by late May if Brockmann's large-scale computer simulations are right. His group at Northwestern University came up with the figure of 1,700 cases by late May, and also projected more than 100 cases for the Chicago area.


"Remember - that's exponential growth, which means slow at the beginning and then very fast," Brockmann said. "If you run the worst-case scenario for four months, we're at a very different number."


Brockmann's computer clusters can be used to simulate an infectious disease that spreads among 300 million people. The approach was based on human mobility patterns - daily commuting, intermediate trips and long-distance ones - which helps determine how a disease could potentially spread, and he modeled those on data from a dollar-bill tracking project called WheresGeorge.com. You can track people's movements, to a certain extent, if you know where they spend cash.


"These networks play an important role in the spread of infectious disease," he said. "So we're looking at how people travel in the United States and Europe and trying to find a theory behind human traffic. Then we can unravel the structures within these networks and explain them."


Brockmann says his forecast is off by a little bit, and that's a good thing. His worst-case scenario assumes that no measures have been taken by officials and public health agencies to combat the spread of disease. Most likely, the case count will be lower than his estimate as a result of such things as stronger public health campaigns for hand washing and social distancing (stand far away from people who are coughing and sneezing), school closures where children are found to be symptomatic and the federal travel advisory against non-essential trips to Mexico.

Brockmann and his team's swine flu results match up well with those of a research group at Indiana University in Bloomington led by computer scientist Alex Vespignani. The teams were aware of each other's work but intentionally worked independently and remained ignorant of each other's methodology to see if they arrived at the same results. When scientists independently arrive at the same result, it suggests they have a finding that is "robust," that is it will stand the test of time.


"When we look at the numbers, they are in stunning agreement," Vespignani told LiveScience. "That is very comforting in the sense that it's a sign of robustness. Also it suggests that the results we are getting are probably correct."


The two teams know each other from conferences, but have never specifically collaborated on a published research report, he said.


Of course, the H1N1 flu outbreak is still evolving, he said.


"We have to buy time for the development and distribution of a vaccine, so that is the point, the main issue," Vespignani said.


Vespignani said his team's forecast for the number of cases on May 17 is 1,200 (a public version of his results are at www.gleamviz.org). If you project that rate forward to Brockmann's calculation for late May, when the virus will have spread to even more people, you get a decent alignment, with rounding

 

[LuvOrlando]

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[DawnCt1]

Dawn: can I ask you something? I just finished reading the chapter in "The Coming Plague" that covers Swine Flu 1918 and 1976. They talk about the rise in Guillain-Barre at the same time as the vaccine program. They mention that there were many cases in vaccinated, but also in non-vaccinated persons. The author gives stats to point to the vaccine, but does not give the full picture.

Question 1 - assuming the vaccine is responsible, how to account for G-B in all those non-vaccinated individuals.

Question 2 - assuming the vaccine is not responsible, how to account for the rise in G-B cases.

Question 3 - the author mentions that at one time they assumed an 80 to 100 "cycle" for viruses like swine flu. Do they still believe it works that way.

Thank you and your DH for all the info you have been providing.

any other books you can recommend?

I think that the actual answer may be "unknowable". The uptick in GBS did occur, but did it overshadow the fact that the Swine Flu never really took off as predicted. I thought that this was a good article. It was written long after the event and with some objectivity, and well before this event, with objectivity. http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol12no01/05-1007.htm

 

[DawnCt1]

According to this site: http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Pandemic-flu/Pages/QA.aspx#Howlong


The flu virus can live on a hard surface for up to 24 hours, and a soft surface for around 20 minutes.

That sounds unrealistic to be honest.