The swine flu outbreak that has alarmed the world for a week now appears less ominous, with the virus showing little staying power in the hardest-hit cities and scientists suggesting it lacks the genetic fortitude of past killer bugs.

President Barack Obama even voiced hope Friday that it may turn out to be no more harmful than the average seasonal flu.
In New York City, which has the most confirmed swine flu cases in the U.S. with 49, swine flu has not spread far beyond cases linked to one Catholic school. In Mexico, the epicenter of the outbreak, very few relatives of flu victims seem to have caught it.
A flu expert said he sees no reason to believe the virus is particularly lethal. And a federal scientist said the germ's genetic makeup lacks some traits seen in the deadly 1918 flu pandemic strain and the more recent killer bird flu.

Still, it was too soon to be certain what the swine flu virus will do. Experts say the only wise course is to prepare for the worst. But in a world that's been rattled by the specter of a global pandemic, glimmers of hope were more than welcome Friday.
"It may turn out that H1N1 runs its course like ordinary flus, in which case we will have prepared and we won't need all these preparations," Obama said, using the flu's scientific name.

The president stressed the government was still taking the virus very seriously, adding that even if this round turns out to be mild, the bug could return in a deadlier form during the next flu season.
New York officials said after a week of monitoring the disease that the city's outbreak gives little sign of spreading beyond a few pockets or getting more dangerous.

All but two of the city's confirmed cases so far involve people associated with the high school where the local outbreak began and where several students had recently returned from Mexico.

More than 1,000 students, parents and faculty there reported flu symptoms over just a few days last month. But since then, only a handful of new infections have been reported — only eight students since last Sunday.

Almost everyone who became ill before then are either recovering or already well. The school, which was closed this past week, is scheduled to reopen Monday. No new confirmed cases were identified in the city on Friday, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the outbreak in New York had so far proved to be "a relatively minor annoyance."

In Mexico, where swine flu has killed at least 16 people and the confirmed case count has surpassed 300, the health secretary said few of the relatives of 86 suspected swine flu patients had caught the virus. Only four of the 219 relatives surveyed turned up as probable cases.

As recently as Wednesday, Mexican authorities said there were 168 suspected swine flu deaths in the country and almost 2,500 suspected cases. The officials have stopped updating that number and say those totals may have even been inflated.
Mexico shut down all but essential government services and private businesses Friday, the start of a five-day shutdown that includes a holiday weekend. Authorities there will use the break to determine whether emergency measures can be eased.
In the Mexican capital, there were no reports of deaths overnight — the first time that has happened since the emergency was declared a week ago, said Mayor Marcelo Ebrard.

"This isn't to say we are lowering our guard or we think we no longer have problems," Ebrard said. "But we're moving in the right direction."
The U.S. case count rose to 161 on Friday, based on federal and state counts, although state laboratory operators believe the number is higher because they are not testing all suspected cases.

Worldwide, the total confirmed cases passed 650, although that number is also believed to be much larger. Besides the U.S. and Mexico, the virus has been detected in Canada, New Zealand, China, Israel and eight European nations.
There were still plenty of signs Friday of worldwide concern.
China decided to suspend flights from Mexico to Shanghai because of a case of swine flu confirmed in a flight from Mexico, China's state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.
And in Hong Kong, hundreds of hotel guests and workers were quarantined after a tourist from Mexico tested positive for swine flu, Asia's first confirmed case.
Evoking the 2003 SARS outbreak, workers in protective suits and masks wiped down tables, floors and windows. Guests at the hotel waved to photographers from their windows.

Scientists looking closely at the H1N1 virus itself have found some encouraging news, said Nancy Cox, flu chief at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Its genetic makeup doesn't show specific traits that showed up in the 1918 pandemic virus, which killed about 40 million to 50 million people worldwide.
"However, we know that there is a great deal that we do not understand about the virulence of the 1918 virus or other influenza viruses" that caused serious illnesses, Cox said. "So we are continuing to learn."

She told The Associated Press that the swine flu virus also lacked genetic traits associated with the virulence of the bird flu virus, which grabbed headlines a few years ago and has killed 250 people, mostly in Asia.

Researchers will get a better idea of how dangerous this virus is over the next week to 10 days, said Peter Palese, a leading flu researcher with Mount Sinai Medical School in New York.
So far in the United States, he said, the virus appears to look and behave like the garden-variety flus that strike every winter. "There is no real reason to believe this is a more serious strain," he said.
Palese said many adults probably have immune systems primed to handle the virus because it is so similar to another common flu strain.
As for why the illness has predominantly affected children and teenagers in New York, Palese said older people probably have more antibodies from exposure to similar types of flu that help them fight off infection.
"The virus is so close," he said.
In the United States, most of the people with swine flu have been treated at home. Only nine people are known to have ended up in the hospital, though officials suspect there are more.
In Mexico, officials have voiced optimism for two days that the worst may be over.
But Dr. Scott F. Dowell of the CDC said it's hard to know whether the outbreak is easing up in Mexico. "They're still seeing plenty of cases," Dowell said.
He said outbreaks in any given area might be relatively brief, so that they may seem to be ending in some areas that had a lot of illness a few weeks ago. But cases are occurring elsewhere, and national numbers in Mexico are not abating, he said.
A top Mexican medical officer questioned the World Health Organization's handling of the early signs of the swine flu scare, suggesting Thursday that a regional arm of the WHO had taken too long to notify WHO headquarters of about a unusually late rash of flu cases in Mexico.

The regional agency, however, provided a timeline to the AP suggesting it was Mexico that failed to respond to its request to alert other nations to the first hints of the outbreak.

The Mexican official, chief epidemiologist Dr. Miguel Angel Lezana, backtracked Friday, telling Radio Formula: "There was no delay by the Mexican authorities, nor was there any by the World Health Organization."
In the U.S., Obama said efforts were focused on identifying people who have the flu, getting medical help to the right places and providing clear advice to state and local officials and the public.

The president also said the U.S. government is working to produce a vaccine down the road, developing clear guidelines for school closings and trying to ensure businesses cooperate with workers who run out of sick leave.
He pointed out that regular seasonal flus kill about 36,000 people in the United States in an average year and send 200,000 to the hospital.

I figured that media hype was way over the top on this one. It is especially interesting that NOW there are only 16 deaths in Mexico.

I hate the way the media can cause mass hysteria over things like this.

Flue Smue... It's Rainbow Reunion weekend! I need Mappy's shakers.

This has been talked about quite a bit on the news up here today.
H1N1 Flu

Quote:

The WHO head expressed concern about the "disproportionate number'' of serious cases on a remote native reserve in northern Manitoba. Hundreds of aboriginals in the community of St. Theresa Point (population 3,200) -- 500 kilometers northeast of Winnipeg -- have reported symptoms, more than a dozen have been treated in hospital, several are reported to be on ventilators. "These are observations of concern to us,'' Fukuda said. Speaking on CTV News Channel, infectious disease specialist Dr. Neil Rau called the Manitoba outbreak "puzzling." "What I find unusual here with the Manitoba situation is that they're describing so many at once. Genetic susceptibility of people of First Nations background is being raised as an explanation," Raoexplained in Toronto. "But no other flu virus has disproportionately affected one ethnic group over another historically so this would be a really new turn if that's the case here." Experts say -- globally -- the disease pattern is different from what officials see with a normal flu outbreak. Victims include not just the very young, the very old and the very sick. Perfectly healthy people in their prime are falling ill.

_________________
In combat or competition, where the stress levels are highest, you do not rise to the occasion… you sink to the level of your training.

i work at a pharmacy and we have seen several patients that have swine flu...well someone getting meds for them. I am not overly concerned YET. I think it is mainly not getting treatment that can cause severe complications, I pray noone in my home gets it,because sick...is sick, but if any of my kids or hubby have symptoms we are right off to the dr.!!@!!!!

We have 43 confirmed cases and 1 death down here.

WHO: Swine flu pandemic has begun, 1st in 41 years


By MARIA CHENG and FRANK JORDANS, Associated Press Writers Maria Cheng And Frank Jordans, Associated Press Writers – 17 mins ago


GENEVA – The World Health Organization declared a swine flu pandemic Thursday — the first global flu epidemic in 41 years — as infections in the United States, Europe, Australia, South America and elsewhere climbed to nearly 30,000 cases.
The long-awaited pandemic announcement is scientific confirmation that a new flu virus has emerged and is quickly circling the globe. WHO will now ask drugmakers to speed up production of a swine flu vaccine, which it said would available after September. The declaration will also prompt governments to devote more money toward efforts to contain the virus.
WHO chief Dr. Margaret Chan made the announcement Thursday after the U.N. agency held an emergency meeting with flu experts. Chan said she was moving to phase 6 — the agency's highest alert level — which means a pandemic, or global epidemic, is under way.
"The world is moving into the early days of its first influenza pandemic in the 21st century," Chan told reporters. "The virus is now unstoppable."
"However, we do not expect to see a sudden and dramatic jump in the number of severe and fatal infections," she added.
On Thursday, WHO said 74 countries had reported 28,774 cases of swine flu, including 144 deaths. Chan described the danger posed by the virus as "moderate."
The agency has stressed that most cases are mild and require no treatment, but the fear is that a rash of new infections could overwhelm hospitals and health authorities — especially in poorer countries.
Still, about half of the people who have died from swine flu were previously young and healthy — people who are not usually susceptible to flu. Swine flu is also crowding out regular flu viruses. Both features are typical of pandemic flu viruses.
The last pandemic — the Hong Kong flu of 1968 — killed about 1 million people. Ordinary flu kills about 250,000 to 500,000 people each year.
Swine flu is also continuing to spread during the start of summer in the northern hemisphere. Normally, flu viruses disappear with warm weather, but swine flu is proving to be resilient.
"What this declaration does do is remind the world that flu viruses like H1N1 need to be taken seriously," said Kathleen Sebelius, the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, warning that more cases could crop up in the fall.
"We need to start preparing now in order to be ready for a possible H1N1 immunization campaign starting in late September," she said in a statement from Washington.
Chan said WHO was now recommending that flu vaccine makers start making swine flu vaccine. Drug giant GlaxoSmithKline PLC said they could start large-scale production of pandemic vaccine in July but that it would take several months before large quantities would be available.
Glaxo spokesman Stephen Rea said the company's first doses of vaccine would be reserved for countries who had ordered it in advance, including Belgium, Britain and France. He said the company would also donate 50 million doses to WHO for poor countries.
Pascal Barollier, a spokesman for Sanofi-Aventis, said they were also working on a pandemic vaccine but WHO had not yet asked them to start producing mass quantities of it.
The pandemic decision might have been made much earlier if WHO had more accurate information about swine flu's rising sweep through Europe. Chan said she called the emergency meeting with flu experts after concerns were raised that some countries like Britain were not accurately reporting their cases.
Chan said the experts unanimously agreed there was a wider spread of swine flu than what was being reported.
Chan would not say which country tipped the world into the pandemic, but the agency's top flu expert, Dr. Keiji Fukuda, said the situation from Australia seemed to indicate the virus was spreading rapidly there — up to 1,260 cases late Wednesday.
Many health experts said the world has been in a pandemic for weeks but WHO became bogged down by politics. In May, several countries urged WHO not to declare a pandemic, fearing it would cause social and economic turmoil.
"This is WHO finally catching up with the facts," said Michael Osterholm, a flu expert at the University of Minnesota.
Despite WHO's hopes, Thursday's announcement will almost certainly spark panic about spread of swine flu in some countries.
Fear has already gripped Argentina, where thousands of people worried about swine flu flooded into hospitals this week, bringing emergency health services in the capital of Buenos Aires to the brink of collapse. Last month, a bus arriving in Argentina from Chile was stoned by people who thought a passenger on it had swine flu.
Chile has the most swine flu cases in South America, and the southern hemisphere is moving into its winter flu season.
In Hong Kong on Thursday, the government ordered all kindergartens and primary schools closed for two weeks after a dozen students tested positive for swine flu. The decision affected over half a million students.
In the United States, where there have been more than 13,000 cases and at least 27 deaths from swine flu, officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the move would not change how the U.S. tackled swine flu.
"Our actions in the past month have been as if there was a pandemic in this country," Glen Nowak, a CDC spokesman, said Thursday.
The U.S. government has already increased the availability of flu-fighting medicines and authorized $1 billion for the development of a new swine flu vaccine. In addition, new cases seem to be declining in many parts of the country, U.S. health officials say, as North America moves out of its traditional winter flu season.
Still, New York City reported three more swine flu deaths Thursday, including one child under 2, one teenager and one person in their 30s.
"Countries where outbreaks appear to have peaked should prepare for a second wave of infection," Chan warned, adding that the virus could mutate "without rhyme or reason, at any time."
In Mexico, where the epidemic was first detected, the outbreak peaked in April. Mexico now has less than 30 cases reported a day, down from an average of 300, Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova told The Associated Press. Mexico has confirmed 6,337 cases, including 108 deaths.
Cordova said he is concerned that other countries were not taking drastic measures to stop its spread like Mexico, which closed schools, restaurants, theaters, and canceled public events. He said the Mexican government has strengthened its detection system to spot cases in most of its 32 states to prepare for a possible second wave of infections in the winter.
"There's much anxiety over how the virus will act in the Southern Hemisphere, because the zone is currently showing a large number of new cases, in particular Australia, Chile and Argentina," Cordova said.
Many experts said the declaration of a pandemic did not mean the virus was getting deadlier.
"People might imagine a virus is now going to rush in and kill everyone," said John Oxford, a professor of virology at St. Bart's and Royal London Hospital. "That's not going to happen."
But Oxford said the swine flu virus might evolve into a more dangerous strain in the future.
"That is always a possibility with influenza viruses," he said. "We have to watch very carefully to see what this virus does."
___
AP Medical Writers Maria Cheng reported from London and Michael Stobbe reported from Atlanta. Associated Press Writers Michael E. Miller in Mexico City, Dikky Sinn in Hong Kong, Vincente L. Panetta in Buenos Aires and Bradley S. Klapper in Geneva also contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090611/ap_on_he_me/un_un_swine_flu

Can you summarize that for me Shirley?

We had a young woman die from this last night. It's still hanging around.