Pig plague 2.0: Can't spell 'pandemic' without 'panic'

Meh

Looks like some big pharma already wasted the huge pile of cash they made from selling craploads of useless drugs to various goverments -tinfoil-hat citizens- with the avian "pandemics" stuff, and are in need of another mammoth cash injection...

Watch out for our next PR-fuelled "pandemics": the Rat Flu (2011), Cockroach Flu (2012), Earthworm Flu (2014), Giant Jellyfish Flu (2017), Laser-equipped Shark Flu (2018), Philodendron Flu (TBA)...

Looks like you only need a few tens of unconfirmed cases to use the word "pandemic" these days. The last one didn't even qualify for the more moderate "epidemic" FFS.

mass hysteria

All this panic from focusing on the wrong figures

The most widespread recent flu outbreak was in 1918, the figures break down that 28% of the population became infected and of the infected 2.5% died from the disease/complications.

If that was repeated then you'd have a 3 in 10 chance of catching it and then 3 in a hundred chance of dieing so overall 0.7%.

Don't get me wrong that's still a lot of people and at an individual level a tragedy for families

It would though create slightly less panic than the reporting along the lines of x hundred people dead.

And these numbers were before the advent of modern healthcare systems and disease control procedures so you'd hope that even though the infection rate was still high the death rate would be lower.

The biggest problem in the US is that people with no or limited healthcare don't go to the doctor and you miss the early stages on the spread which makes containing it and treating it harder.

It is surprising...

...that the various western gubmints haven't seized the opportunity to blame it on Iran or Al Qaeda or the Taliban. Very odd. If anything, it lends it more credence but ultimately I agree with Pierre, it's probably a big pharma false flag mission. It's like every kid has ADHD now or some other condition that 20 years ago would've been treated with a clip 'round the ear but now needs copious quantities of meds, and everyone's depressed and needs useless anti-depressants that only induce side-effects but no relief from misery, and they've even got an obesity pill which is truly staggering; can't you just stop eating pie? Cut down on the cake perhaps? More meds, more meds.

There's no news like sensational news, it's the new truth you know. Well done El Reg for showing a bit of restraint and cynicism in a Diogenes kinda-way. Let's wait and see shall we and as someone else said, the human race could do with a bit of a cull and I don't mind dying as long as it's not too painful and is relatively quick.

I have a snotty cold right now too, bugger.

If Susan Boyle catches swine flu...

...then presumably the whole media circus will implode. At least until the next Big Thing comes along. Next week.

U.S. no paid sick-leave a problem

AC wrote: "The biggest problem in the US is that people with no or limited healthcare don't go to the doctor and you miss the early stages on the spread which makes containing it and treating it harder."

The other thing is, many of the millions of low-income or minimum-wage workers keep on GOING TO WORK every day for as long as they possibly can in the early stages of things, because they have *NO* PAID SICK-LEAVE and they can't afford to miss any pay by taking time off from work just because they felt a little woosy or what they thought was just a cold (to *start* with, before it gets worse).

But from what I understand (generally speaking) they can still be CONTAGIOUS to everyone around them since those viruses are airborne and harder to avoid (as in, breathing).

The worker pops some cheap generic "cold medicine" (kept on hand for such occasions) to help mask the initial symptoms, you go to work and try not to let on that you feel like crap even though you're about ready to fall over, and do your best to make sure the boss doesn't notice, because you don't want to get sent home and lose a day's pay. You might be able to pull that off for some time. So you spread contagious *airborne* viruses to your CUSTOMERS and the rest of the general public - thinking of restaurant jobs, hotel/motel workers, some cashiers and the many other low-paid or minimum-wage "service" jobs that typically don't have any benefits such as paid sick-leave. It's common.

It could become a problem if a nasty enough airborne-contagious virus was involved. You'd just have to breathe a few whiffs of the same air as one of those early-stage sick workers, then you take the virus/disease home with you and spread it to your own family, friends, neighbors, your own coworkers, etc., and it goes on from there.

In the case of some new quickly-spreading highly-contagious airborne virus, seems like it could be a problem. The government tells sick people to stay home, but they go to work anyway (as far as possible) because they need the money.

I also wonder about the more urban tightly-packed populations we have now, which would speed up transmission, compared to (at least in the U.S.) the still comparatively less-urbanized populations at the time of the 1917/18 flu. You'd think we modern humans, as descendents of survivors of the 1918 flu (I lost some ancestors to that), would have some built-in genetic immunity, but maybe it doesn't quite work so neat and tidy like that, who knows.