Spooky Mulder

Swine flu came closer to home yesterday as someone who works for me has just returned to work having had a week off with swine flu.

So my attention was pricked by two stats given out by the BBC in the last three days.

One fact is that around a third of the population will contract Swine Flu this year.

Last night, remarkably, the BBC put up a graphic which showed a death rate of 0.5%.

If you put these two figures together then you get a number of at least 100,000 dead which is a MASSIVE number.

Something does not add up here.

The reality is that at the end of last week the number of confirmed cases was around 10,000 with the number of deaths at 16.

This is a death rate, at worst of 0.0016%. And that is based on confirmed cases. There are probably two to five times the number of real cases, although the death rate may also be understated.

By the BBCs assessment we will be seeing 550 deaths a day between now and the end of the year. A truly fatal epidemic!

tanyatriangles

iTrader: (2)

I'm sorry, but I truly hate, loathe and despise the BBC, from it's constant trying to frighten everyone, to it's constant doom and gloom, to it's fawning over Labour politicians, to it's paying of obscene sums of money to untalented gits like Wogan and Woss, to it's lack of ENGLISH presenters on ENGLISH services.

I'd remove their license fee safety net and see how they get on then.........bust like Setanta in two years

I take ANYTHING they say on pandemics with a whole cellarful of salt: if you believed them, half of us would now be dead with BIRD flu, let alone swine flu. And how many DID die?

dunx

iTrader: (3)

5000 deaths a week till xmas !

Buy shares in your local undertaker !

dunx

P.S. I feel tired, and have a sore throat that doesn't hurt

richiewong

How many people die from 'normal flu?'

http://www.euro.who.int/influenza/20080618_1

Jerome

The release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has caused numerous problems with swine flu about.

The word is, if you watch Harry Potter while you have swine flu, you get hogwarts.

Well, you did say non-facts..

Coat well and truly on.

EddScott

Indeed. As deaths from swine flu rocket into single figures the "big picture" of how many people die of flu worldwide gets brushed to one side.

Like when we were all going to lose our marbles because we'd eaten mental cows for years. Like when we'd all suddenly contract AIDS or die from a dodgy egg.

Until people drop dead in thousands per day within the first week of a virus emerging I'm not going to lose any sleep. Heck I had all the symptoms last week from sore throat to fever and swallon glands the whole shebang. I was rather hoping to be the first kid on my street to catch it and be in the paper!

richiewong

Now that was twatful, funny but twatful

Corblyme

Ive got swine flu...... although it hasnt been 'confirmed'

My friend has swine flu and I started developing flu like symptoms, so rang my surgery and spoke to my doctor she went through a check list.....then announced yes its swine flu and I had to send someone to collect my prescription for Tamiflu.

So now Im stuck at home, I thought it quite odd how they now assume its swine flu without any testing.

I suppose if I die then they will know for sure (joking) .. (i hope) lol

Rachael

Corblyme

Just found these.....so I reckon Ill live

Rachael xx

Geezer

The gut who sits next to me has just spoken to his doctor and from his symptoms, he has been told it's most likely he has swine flu and they have prescribed Tamiflu.

I must admit, he really didn't seem too well!

Just as I'm about to start my holidays too!

Geezer

Clarebabes

When I rang the doctor they said that I had a viral infection, to drink plenty of clear fluids and take paracetamol. Still suffering now, but back at work for now... Might have to go home though as I feel rotten!

StickyMicky

PMSL!

For what its worth, the missus was telling me that some other teacher in her school has been diagnosed with it, so i will no doubt be dead within the next week or so.

spider

iTrader: (1)

I'm sure I heard reported that in the UK alone we lose somewhere in the region of 20,000 people per annum to "normal" flu each year, so Bird, Swine, or any other extra flu has a way to go to catch up.

Tried searching Google, but if you put in "UK", "deaths", and "flu", all you get is hysterical "news" reports about Swine Flu!

Let's hope we don't get anything like the Spanish flu pandemic like they did after World War 1 - now that was a killer! Wikipedia

michaelro

Was chatting to a guy last week who said his best mate (A Medic) had a flat mate with swine flu.
The medic was desperately hoping he'd contract it so he'd have a few days off work...

hodgy0_2

the 0.5% figure only applies to the total amount that need treatment (which i dont think includes people who just visit the doctors)

Leslie

I could not put that any better.

Les

warrenm2

dont forget SARS, AIDS and BSE

TelBoy

Yeah, more English presenters please, and teachers while you're at it...

hodgy0_2

whats the definition of an English presenter, does that exclude the Welsh and the Scots?

and whats an example of an non English presenter?

scrappydoo

...

TelBoy

And why's that, Dr Scrappydoo?


Excluding anything based on your own personal uninformed bias of course. Just hard medical facts please.

You are, you're, fyi.

scrappydoo

...

hoskib

iTrader: (1)

i've said this before funnily enough. you don't hear a bloody thing about them!

all these diseases are still around. it's just **** me, what a shocker, they're not the end of mankind like 'they' would like you to believe.

swine flu, bird flu - utter, utter bollocks making a lot of companies and their investors and shareholders an awful lot of money

Fabioso

I don't buy into this "It's all a conspiracy!!!" bollix tbh.....

Its a new version of the flu and we don't have any natural immunity to it.

Those are the facts......we did go to the Moon and Michael Jackson and Elvis are dead and not working in a chip shop in Hackney.

Me?, I'm going to use what ever technology is available to make me feel better if I get this and then I am going to get on with my life.

Its a flu virus and people are going to die and thats the reality. If you don't like it well its kind of tough. Making this out to be like the SARS/BSE non-event is pointless.

TelBoy

Go ahead and try and find those two grammatical errors, especially anything that basic

So The Times publishes evidence that the health checks have been rushed through. Since you're a doctor (of sorts, naturally), you'll know that rushed through does NOT mean they have not been done thoroughly. Vaccines by their very nature (again, sorry if i'm preaching to the informed) are dirty drugs, there is no such thing as a 100% side-effect proof vaccine. But what the government WON'T do is release the vaccine until they're as sure as they can be that the potential problems have been minimised. But of course you'd know that.

hoskib

iTrader: (1)

the reality is also a hell of a lot more do and will continue to, die form your bog standard flu. each year, year on year. a fact that is being far too overlooked in my opinion.

without going off on one, the fact that the elderly and those with less capability to fight infection are given far less help compared to the blanket bombing of leaflets and a wonder drug release gets on my **** a bit.

it's all about money, sorry but that's it.

29 deaths (and how many of that have been TOTALLY down to swine flu?) and we get this panic. bloody madness.

ricardo

At work there has been all sorts of planning for 'pandemics' for quite a while, ever since avian flu was going to kill us all. There was even a VP for Pandemics.

In spite of meticulous planning we didn't all die of flu. Not that time anyway.

jonc

Don't understand the logic behind this. So are you saying you don't buy from any of the supermarket chains, or buy petrol from from any of the petrol chemical companies, or have a bank account, credit card or mortgage from any banks and more importantly use/will use pain killers/paracetamol/cold flu remedies from any of the pharmaceutical companies etc etc etc. as that would filling the pockets of the shareholders of these companies some of those who work closely with the government? Whats with the hypocritical stance?

What do you suggest the government do? sit back and do nothing? are you even able to suggest an alternative action the government should be taking? Are you even suggesting that vulnerable people shouldn't get vaccinated or use antiviral drugs because they are don't do anything/unsafe/only make shareholders richer? Its all very well telling people not to take it but how's that going to stop it spreading and getting more virulent and killing more people? Please share with us your wisdom and enlighten us.

scrappydoo

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jonc

Do you even know the difference between avian and swine flu? Perhaps the meticulous planning ensured we didn't all die of flu!