talkmagic.co.uk

Well, not to put a downer on things, but I'd recommend you go check the article on the Spanish flu episode in Wikipedia, which took away (the flu, not Wiki) a mere 50 million people at the end of WWI... About 5% of the worldwide population at the time, twice as much as the war casualties.

Funnily (?) enough, it seems to be a similar strain that is being talked about now.

Even more hilarious is the related thread on cytokine storms, which are ensuring that mostly the young and heathy lads and lasses get to meet their maker first.

Considering that in 1918, international travel wasn't as prevalent as it is now, let's extrapolate to 10% of the worldwide population, which is now
about 5 billion...

Then again, my Mexican buddy is convinced this is a plot by the American pork lobby to derail Mexican pork export to the US. Maybe it's the same PR team that innoculated over 100 people with a deadly disease that spun the mad cow disease story in the UK to pi$$ off British farmers...

Anyways, me goes back to read Malthus a pint of beer in hand, enjoying the sun at the terrace of my local

""The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man. Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will show the immensity of the first power in comparison with the second."

Take care

LP.

Then again, my Mexican buddy is convinced this is a plot by the American pork lobby to derail Mexican pork export to the US.

If this was the case, i am sure that they would of come up with something that infected the flesh of the animal.

almost all of these new fangled virus's stem from modern intensive farming techniques.

the livestock are fed modified food, pumped with different drugs, and kept in cramped conditions that become teh perfect place for new strains to evolve. some of these strains preffer human hosts, to bovine, and porcine hosts.. and so the "pandemic"...( so like the word pannic dont you think?) starts.

Le Petit Bateleur wrote:
Well, not to put a downer on things, but I'd recommend you go check the article on the Spanish flu episode in Wikipedia, which took away (the flu, not Wiki) a mere 50 million people at the end of WWI... About 5% of the worldwide population at the time, twice as much as the war casualties.

From what i remember reading , it was the war that spread the flu. The strain originated on the battlefield at the end of WW1, was spread from soldier to soldier and when they all got demob'd home, the flu spread rapidly across the globe.... instant dissipation without loss of potency due to flu strain mutation over time.

G

aaaaahhh...

...chuuuuuuuuu

Perdon, senor.

So it's still 5 people in the UK who have pig flu, and they're all making good recoveries. I may be tempting fate, but you would have expected there to be more people infected by now. It being a pandemic and all.

I wonder how long one gets signed off work for when one has swine flu?

themagicwand wrote:So it's still 5 people in the UK who have pig flu, and they're all making good recoveries. I may be tempting fate, but you would have expected there to be more people infected by now. It being a pandemic and all.

I wonder how long one gets signed off work for when one has swine flu?

Read in the paper today that some fellow has been told not come in to work for a week because he just got back from mexico, so you can have a week off without actually having it.

Anyway, how many people have got standard (or "ready salted") Flu in the last week?

Lawrence wrote:
Anyway, how many people have got standard (or "ready salted") Flu in the last week?

And how does one tell the difference?

Aah-choo. Oink.

Go on... What's the difference between Swine Flu and Bird Flu....?

Lawrence wrote:Go on... What's the difference between Swine Flu and Bird Flu....?

I don't know. What is the difference between swine flu and bird flu?

To pass the time while you're figuring that out:

"I think I've got swine flu" declared one chap. "I've just come out in a nasty rasher," he added.

Another bloke stated: "My mate says he has swine flu." Then added: "But I think he's just telling porkies."

I just heard about the guy who took a week off work claiming to have swine flu - when he went back they gave him the chop...

Mandrake wrote:To pass the time while you're figuring that out:

"I think I've got swine flu" declared one chap. "I've just come out in a nasty rasher," he added.

Another bloke stated: "My mate says he has swine flu." Then added: "But I think he's just telling porkies."

I just heard about the guy who took a week off work claiming to have swine flu - when he went back they gave him the chop...

Just as an ammendment to Le Petit Bateleurs post, global population is estimated to be closer to 6.8 Billion not 5 Billion .


I just got off the phone to the Swine flu Hotline, It didn't ease my fears at all, all i could hear was crackling.

Protect and survive taught me how to deal with all emergencies. Brown paper on the windows will save me from nuclear fall out. If it will protect me from that I'm sure it will do against a flu.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_DfmRt8pgU

Replicant wrote:The media are doing what they do best and they are on form as usual.

Tomo wrote:Has anyone here ever had influenza?

I had the flu around Christmas time and I don't mean a bad cold, either. It was the proper flu and it knocked me for six. I was off work for a week and bedridden with serious aches and pains. People who say they have the "flu" don't know what they're talking about. If they did have it, they sure as hell wouldn't be standing there telling me about it.

Stil, the flu is preferable to catching that ebola virus. Nasty.

You know you have got Flu when you see a 20 pound not in the garden from your window but you are not willing to go and get it nor ask someone else to colect it.

Also if you've never watched the war game filmed in 1965 you should. It was a BBC documentary in the 60s that was filmed but not broadcasted. It was decided it would cause too much panic as the defences were so woeful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ssW29zYJtE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Game

A scientific method to check if you have swine flu:
http://doihaveswineflu.org/