Coming this summer!!!
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Everybody freak out!!!
...meanwhile, 300,000+ people in Botswana, a country of 2 million, have HIV/AIDS.
Monday, April 27, 2009
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Click the image to make it bigger.
Everybody freak out!!!
...meanwhile, 300,000+ people in Botswana, a country of 2 million, have HIV/AIDS.
Posted by
Widukind
at
4/27/2009 10:05:00 PM
3 comments:
Michael, while I love you and this post I want to point out a couple things. I know you are going to give me shit for this no matter what, but here goes anyway. For the past few days I have been studying and reading my ass off for a take-home exam I have due in my course on Epidemics. As I type this I am loaded on Red Bull and dip, so please excuse any grammatical and spelling issues (I know this may be hard for you). For this class, in the past few days I have done extended reading (catching up on the whole semester) on both AIDS, and the threat of Avian/Swine flu.
While I completely agree that the hysteria surrounding swine flu has been totally overblown, it does represent another case in a pretty frightening trend. Due to developmental changes in our society over the past few years, we (humans) are at a much higher risk for all sorts of new diseases. The classic case of which is AIDS. However, AIDS wasn't the first and won't be the last. While AIDS has struck tons of people worldwide and killed many hundreds of thousands (and millions and will kill millions more), Avian Flu/Swine Flu presents much of the same risk. Now I am not trying to minimize the impact of AIDS, I am just trying to rationalize some of the worry regarding influenza. Not too long ago, in 1918 the World suffered from an outbreak of influenza, which started from a yet determined location, and which killed a yet determined amount of people. According to some statistics, the epidemic killed 21.64 million. However, these statistics are generally regarded as way too low. More likely, the virus killed 48.8 million to 100 million people across the globe, which represents at the high mark 6% of the World Population now. Obviously this is a huge figure- in some areas such as India, mortality rates ranged from 20-60%.
Now, while this most recent swine flu epidemic might be a whole bunch of smoke and mirrors, and to some extent is looking like it might be, the threat of Avian flu is real. There have been recent developments in the flu, that have created a so-called superstrain: GenZ H5N1. According to a table in a book I am reading for this class, there are many different figures for how many people this could kill if mutations occurred (which will likely happen eventually). Extrapolating a 1968 epidemic- 2-7.4 million people would die. According to the estimates of a member of the WHO 7-100 million would die. If you extrapolate the rate of the 1918 epidemic- a maximum of 325 million people would die. And if the H5N1 mortality rate is extrapolated, up to 1 billion could die. I think that kind of speaks for itself. And this would happen in a much shorter time span than the 2.1 million that have estimated to have died from AIDS so far.
I hope this gives some sense of what the hysteria is all about. While we in the US would probably be safe, those in Third World Countries would be screwed. People with AIDS, people who were malnourished, people living in close population densities would all be extremely vulnerable to the disease. And it wouldn't be like AIDS, where to some extent the communication of the disease is preventable. The disease would spread though the air, and all of use would end up looking like those AZNs. Also, these type of diseases tend to hit young adults (yay) especially hard, which may explain part of the hysteria.
Now I don't know why I responded with such length, probably because I have been reading about this shit so much and also because while I enjoyed your movie poster so much, it does make you wonder. At some point Avian flu or Swine flu for that matter will make the jump to humans, and right now we are unprepared if that happens. While this outbreak may be a little overhyped it does signal our vulnerability, and hopefully something will be done by the people in charge.
Love,
Hungry
That was very well done, Hungry. I consider myself a much smarter man after reading that. Bravo, lad!
Alex. Thank you for that. I don't really know why you expected me to give you shit for it, since you clearly know way more about than I do and the whole thing made perfect sense. Also, I understand the possible severity of a pandemic; my original post was aimed at the ridiculous attention this has gotten from the media, and all the dudes from the WHO and CDC who are acting like that dude with the glasses from Independence Day. Like in your post, somebody from the WHO estimates between 7 and 100 million people could die? What in the hell kind of estimate is that?
I just think it's hilarious that Mexico is already predicting way lower death totals than they previously thought, and that the CDC is saying that it looks less severe than they originally said. Well, yeah, because the whole world is under the impression that everyone is going to die in two weeks. Good one, guys.
It's also ridiculous to think that if 80 people had died right away from this thing in the US, things would be completely out of control here. And, the only reason we really give a shit about people dying in Mexico is because it has already traveled into the US. If it was just a bunch of Mexicans dying of some weird flu, no one here would give a rats ass.
I guess I am right next door to the CDC, so maybe I should just go bring this up with them.
Anyways, I second HomelessNigg's appreciation. Hooray for actually learning something in college!
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