friday breakfast flu

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I was wrong.

The number of cases DID almost double again. Day before yesterday there were 148 confirmed cases and yesterday there were 257 confirmed... actually, I should say, "officially confirmed". It goes from suspected to confirmed to officially confirmed, and they're sloooooow between each step.

Day before yesterday it was in 9 countries and yesterday it was in 11 countries.

So, we are on the horns of a pandemic, not out of the woods.

They just don't goddam update the stats on time each day, and so it's hard to keep a bead on it. They just yesterday got cracking on even getting the testing kits disseminated. Pfeh. Which would also account for the slowness of confirming the cases. They keep bragging about being able to respond to everything in real time nowadays, but, really, how real time is officially reporting a confirmed case that has been a suspected case for so long they're almost recovered... or... dead?

They are still harping on how you cannot get this flu from pork products, and sticking to the shtick about no symptomatic pigs at the farm in La Gloria... even though word is they have deigned to go there and investigate... over a month since well over half the town became ill and a week in to the whole world getting in on the action. I know they all knew about it well in advance of bloggers. They spent a few days trying to deflect it rather than face it, but I'm relieved to see that the stink we raised about the La Gloria pig farms put it in the MSM. Reporters and agencies are there now for sure, and I'm not sure they would have been if bloggers hadn't started pitching fits about it.

I am irked to see that, for whatever reasons, media and agencies are downplaying the numbers in Mexico from before the various labs had confirmed that it was the same flu in the U.S. as in Mexico. There has been no further mention of the over 200 dead in one hospital, and, given that the source was afraid to tell anyone, and adamant not to be named, and put that blip on the biosurveillance radar, I think it was real. Early reports of the many deaths from severe pneumonia had fizzled out, and not counted, ostensibly for lack of the vaunted confirmation, but I was relieved to hear WHO mentioning that they are looking for swine flu-like symptoms and all severe pneumonia cases. Though they do still seem to be at sea....

My dear friend Homie from the heart of the Axis of Evil sent me this playlist of informative pandemic-related videos and some of it was quite edifying for me, even after a whole week of wading in this stuff. If yer on a Mac and use Safari it won't play, but if you switch over to Firefox it will play just fine. You can just kick back and let the information soak in... between commercials, of course. Down the way you will get to hear Dr. Margaret Chan announcing about the level five alert, and I found that particularly informative. For instance, I'd forgotten plum about how flu does a hell of a lot more damage in Third World countries than in us fat First World countries. The people just outright are not as healthy. They're hungry and nutrient deprived and much more likely to become seriously ill when they get the flu. Though, we have so many diabetics from the poison in our grocery stores, and so many hungry and homeless and extremely personally compromised people now, this is not going to be a picnic for us either. Lots of good stuff to know and think about here. You can skip through the playlist by pressing the fast forward button if you don't want to endure Matt Lauer's blather....

Or. Instead. You could just check out what they call humor in the Axis of Evil... those sick, sick, nuke-hugger Persians.... Take your mind off the invisible threat and put it on the visible non-threat for a couple minutes.

Up to you.

So, anyway, I was feeling as though things might be fizzling out, flu-wise, but then I finally got the updated numbers, and, well, maybe not so much. Pfeh. I think they should replace the Wall Street bull with this pig, don't you?