Swine Flu!
 

Discuss. :bleh:

The culture of fear strikes again!

Not that it isn't something to worry about but it's a nice new shiny thing that makes us forget about the real pandemic of our time, HIV, with 25 million people killed since 1981, 2 million of those deaths being last year.

I will say we're in pretty good hands though, the WHO director general was health minister of Hong Kong during the bird flu outbreak, and believe me, they shut that city down and took care of business.

*sneezes*

Yeah but AIDS is something that can be prevented, and it's transmission is nowhere as easy as the flu so I don't think your comparison sticks. Also because AIDS mostly concerns poor people in Africa, most of the world doesn't care anyway.

Heh

That kid is probably the one that spread it around everywhere :p

The flu can be prevented too. Wear masks, wash your hands, stand 6 feet away from people. Have a healthy lifestyle that gives you a strong immune system. Both are communicable viral diseases so the comparison does stand.

Also, Asia and Eastern Europe are now the regions with the fastest growing rate of HIV infection, Africa however has the largest number of people living with the disease. There is a difference.

I wonder how many dies EVERY DAY in traffic ..... maybe we should shut down all traffic?

However the flu is transfered through the air while you can avoid aids by being careful who you decide to... swap body fluids with. A massive flu outbreak would make normal life impossible, especially in overcrowded cities. People would still have to buy their food from stores ect.

Me on the countryside? I'll just sit the damn thing out.

Yeah but you have to admit HIV is different in the respect that you need intimate contact. Flu can be easier to catch and very quickly spread. In fact, if HIV was like the flu, humanity may well have been extinct by now.

I'd like to see the people in London stand 6ft away from me.

That'd be great.

Maybe if I contract something that's not fatal, it'll happen and I can catch the tube without having to sniff some fat bastard's armpit or get squashed into some leviathon cleavage.

What's the toll now? 100 worldwide? Mostly come back from Mexico or something right?

More people were killed in the first few hours we walked into Basra.
People shot pigs, too. They have human cries. Not nice. I don't want to think about it.