OT: Obama declares H1N1 a national emergency.

nyuk, nyuk, nyuk

body and how you were feeling, you could detect it really soon and get the treatment you need.

What sucks for me is that I work at a grocery store as a cashier and I come into contact with hundreds of people each day. There’s even a small clinic in our store. The people who are sick where mask over their face. I refer to them as the “infected”.

My son tested positive for Type A influenza a couple weeks ago. His doctor said the only flu going around was H1N1 so she considered it a positive test for the “Swine Flu”. My son never developed a fever above 100 and maybe threw up once.

Per his doctor, it is a widewpead flu of epedimic proportions. However, for most, the symptoms are not as severe as the normal seasonal flu. It should be treated like the normal seasonal flu with Tamaflu(sp) or other antiviral drugs. Call your doctor if any symptom worsens.

From my wife ( a Respiratory Therapist), they are seeing more flu patients in the hospital with respiratory problems. The H1N1 virus appears to effect the respiratory system more than the normal seasonal flu.

I have read reports in the internet that the H1N1 has been effecting a different subset of the population that normally doesn’t get (or have problems) with the flu: teens to early 20s. Some reports have also said that the elderly (or people born before 1960) may have been exposed to a similar flu strain in the 1950s so they have a natural immunity to H1N1.

DC is at most local….

if we weren’t talking about a flu.

not catch colds.

I don’t know some people are just more sickly than others. There are some people who are always coming down with something but oftentimes they’re the ones who smoke. or don’t eat well or don’t get enough rest or a combination of the 3.. So maybe I can attribute my good health to not smoking (cigarettes) eating well (lots of oranges) and getting plenty of sleep and of course staying strong with the work outs.

Speaking of work outs …what ever happened with your PX90 aspirations?

I just heard from some doctor on CNN that getting the regular flu vaccine without a doubt helps you be resistant to H1N1 “to a certain degree”. So if you can’t get the real deal definitely get the regular one asap until you can get the real deal.

…but 10 months out of college we still don’t have meaningful employment/health insurance so we couldn’t get tested. I’m pretty sure I had it though.

I’ve been sick for a week. I had over a 101 fever for 3 days which made my eyes hurt. I was (and still am) coughing a lot. My whole body ached. I was extremely tired. It felt like the flu, but about 3x worse. I never threw up though.

The point in giving something national emergency status is so that you can funnel emergency funds into the problem. But what are they going to do here? It’s not like they can really ramp up production of the H1N1 vaccine at this point, that should have been done 6-9 months ago. Maybe this helps update the system in place that would deal with pandemic like diseases, but I doubt the government has that much foresight. At best, maybe the money goes to help deal with the increased burdens on the big hospitals (many of whom are setting up tents outside their emergency rooms just for H1N1).

We all realize it’s serious, so it’s not like it’s calling attention to something that’s flying under the radar. At the same time, while there are deaths being reported, it’s not like it’s so much more deadly than the regular flu that it needs to be treated like ebola.

Somewhat interesting side note: For my classmates in the clinics, if you get a confirmed H1N1 case, you have to spend 14 days at home. Which sounds great at first, but then you realize that means you have to repeat that rotation. So most people who get it wear the mask and don’t get tested for it. Ain’t health care grand?