That flu thing Billp is always trying to talk about

[glitter]

I got my mom a couple of boxes on amazon rated N95- they are not out yet-but if this rebounds more visiously in the fall-I'll bet there will be none to be had- better prepare now.

[Bill Peckham]

Remember if you do use an N95 mask that outside is contaminated after you've worn it. It needs to be either thrown away or I think it could be reused, maybe, if you could leave it in direct sunlight for some period of time. Sunlight would disinfect it - I think this would allow some reuse.

Glitter I think you're right to be thinking about the fall/winter flu season. If this drops off the front page in the summer we might have a chance to buy some even if there are none to be found now.

[Zach]

What about the eyes?

I know rubbing your eyes can spread the human flu, so are goggles necessary for better protection?

[Bill Peckham]

Wallyz's neck of the woods

Wash. doctor with potential swine flu saw 22 kids

Associated Press - April 30, 2009 8:43 PM ET

EVERETT, Wash. (AP) - A Washington state pediatrician who thought she was battling allergies saw 22 patients and their parents before testing positive for what is believed to be swine flu.

Dr. Yuan-Po Tu, medical director of The Everett Clinic, said Thursday the pediatrician tested positive for the flu, but the exact kind couldn't be determined and it was presumed to be swine flu.

A sample has been sent to federal officials, and the clinic is contacting any patients potentially exposed.

The doctor came to work Monday at the clinic's Mill Creek branch with symptoms she thought were due to seasonal allergies. Later, she fell ill and went to an emergency room.

Tu says the doctor's husband and two children also have come down with a flu-like illness but are doing well on antiviral treatment.

http://www.khq.com/global/story.asp?s=10283644

[Bill Peckham]

What about the eyes?

I know rubbing your eyes can spread the human flu, so are goggles necessary for better protection?

Don't rub your eyes (something I keep catching myself doing - it is allergy season)

Staff should wear a face shield and N95 mask if they're dialyzing someone with symptoms or who may have been exposed.

I know that some people included eye protection in their preparations but I think of that more for a high severity version - I think the severity determines how far I am going.

[BigSky]

This is a great reason to secure our borders.

Remember when people use to come to america via ellis island.  If they were sick they were turned away or quarantined.
Obamas thoughts are.  Well it is here so why secure the borders.  Is he even for real??
With that kind of logic well nuff said.

They dropped the ball on this.  The person he has in charge of DHS is an idiot and this is just another in a line of incompetent actions on her part.

[Bill Peckham]

I was expecting boarder closures at level 4 - but I always assumed ground zero would be in Asia or N Africa. This situation has turned a lot of planning assumptions on their head. One other assumption - because of the high severity H5N1 virus - is that a pandemic would be severe. If this bug, isn't causing severe illness I'm not sure you can justify the disruption that stopping and quarantining travelers would cause. Would you really want to keep tens of thousands of people isolated at the boarder when the bug causes mild illness? That is a very hard call to make. How many US vacationers were in Mexico in April? The first cases were identified in Mexico AND southern California, meaning the virus was already here.

We always would have needed to make it island N America, we can't shut the US boarders without quickly causing problems in the supply chain. I'm on the KCER calls, FMC mentioned that all their blood lines are manufactured in Mexico. All of the NxStage supplies come from Mexico. If you closed the boarders the dialysis providers would start facing shortages in critical supplies in a fairly short period of time (that's one question I never was able to get answered - how many days worth of dialysis tubing sets are there in the world? If FMC is using best practices in materials management then we're talking 8 t0 12 weeks.)

I don't think closing the boarder was ever a viable option.

[paul.karen]

Closing the border = securing the border.  Supplies could still continue coming and going.  It is the Illegals i am referring to.  All other countries have secure borders. Where if you Illegally sneak into a country you go to jail and get deported.  Our borders should have been secured long ago.  After 9/11 they for sure should be secured.  But our great leaders would rather pander to  illegals then protect us from other issues that could arise from porous borders.  Terrorists being a great concern.  Politicians cry foul about guns and drugs yet again still refuse to close off the illegal routes used by certain people.  Does this not make politicians an accessory to crimes.

As for the flu.  yes it is here.  But if we contain it which would be good what is the use when anyone in Mexico who is sick can just walk into the USA knowing the will get free medical and infecting people on the way.

So if im reading you right you would be ok with not allowing people who would have to FLY into the USA. But people that can walk its ok?
And this flu isnt the H5N1, not sure if that was an example or a typo. The H refers to Bird flu if im correct.  I wonder if we would close the borders if this was a chemical attack killing people in a 24 hour period.  I hate to say some people would still be against closing the borders even if that were the case.  But i am happy to see you are open for closing borders under your definition of certain standards.  i just feel those circumstances mean illegal is illegal and terrorist is terrorist and contagions are contagions.

Curious when would closing the borders be viable in your opinion?

Ps.  this is another reason not to outsource jobs and put made in America labels on things we rely on.   We are to dependant for things from other countries.
This is purely my opinion..

[Bill Peckham]

Closing the border = securing the border.  Supplies could still continue coming and going.  It is the Illegals i am referring to.  All other countries have secure borders. Where if you Illegally sneak into a country you go to jail and get deported.  Our borders should have been secured long ago.  After 9/11 they for sure should be secured.  But our great leaders would rather pander to  illegals then protect us from other issues that could arise from porous borders.  Terrorists being a great concern.  Politicians cry foul about guns and drugs yet again still refuse to close off the illegal routes used by certain people.  Does this not make politicians an accessory to crimes.

As for the flu.  yes it is here.  But if we contain it which would be good what is the use when anyone in Mexico who is sick can just walk into the USA knowing the will get free medical and infecting people on the way.

So if im reading you right you would be ok with not allowing people who would have to FLY into the USA. But people that can walk its ok?
And this flu isnt the H5N1, not sure if that was an example or a typo. The H refers to Bird flu if im correct.  I wonder if we would close the borders if this was a chemical attack killing people in a 24 hour period.  I hate to say some people would still be against closing the borders even if that were the case.  But i am happy to see you are open for closing borders under your definition of certain standards.  i just feel those circumstances mean illegal is illegal and terrorist is terrorist and contagions are contagions.

Curious when would closing the borders be viable in your opinion?

Ps.  this is another reason not to outsource jobs and put made in America labels on things we rely on.   We are to dependant for things from other countries.
This is purely my opinion..

No typo all the pandemic planning - or a great deal of the motivation to do pandemic planning came from worrying about the H5N1 virus which is still out there  - new cases were just reported in Egypt and Indonesia. This is the H1N1 and does not cause as severe illness as the H5N1. I think you have to consider severity when you are thinking what to do.

The H stands for a type of protein Hemagglutinin - think of this as the key that lets the virus into your cells. The N stands for another type of protein Neuraminidase - think of this as the key that lets the virus out of your cells. All flues have an H and an N protein - I think there are something like 9 known H proteins and 12 known N proteins - Any combination, in theory, could be a human flu virus. One seasonal flu is H3N2 - the 1957 Asian flu was caused by H2N2. The 1918 Spanish flu was an H1N1 which is now a seasonal flu but this H1N1 is different. It is possible that older people have some immunity to this version but that isn't yet clear.

If it was easy to secure the boarder that would have been done before now for other reasons. People travel between the US and Mexico, the economies are tied together. Turning this into an excuse for anti immigrant hatred does not make sense. The flu doesn't know what passport you have, one person spreading the flu on a flight and in an airport is going to spread this faster then some guy coughing his way across the boarder.

I think if this does start causing severe illness you will see travel restrictions within the US. To slow the spread.

[paul.karen]

Bill i am agreeing with you as you are with me??

But please dont ever say im ANTI IMMIGRATION or that i have HATRED for immigrants.  Thats pretty rude from such a well spoken person as yourself IMO.
I am against ILLEGALS this is true.  Please get your facts straight if you are gonna try to paint an image of me ok.  I was raised over seas and i was the minority.  I have no hatred for anyone ok.  But i am not happy with Illegals sneaking into my country using our resources when thousands of others are trying to do it legally.  I hope we have that straight.

and YOU said you were expecting border closures at level 4.  So do you hate Africans and Asians??  No i didnt think so.

So your opinion yet again in your world is right and to anyone who opposes you is just wrong.

As for an easy way to secure your borders are you for real??  Every other country seems to be able to do it.  It is politics plain and simple.  One day we will secure the borders but it will be kinda late IMO.

[Wallyz]

I think you are misinterpreting the data. It's not poor people who are spreading it, its, wealthy visitors who are flying in and out.  People who are sick are not able to make the trip on foot north.

[Bill Peckham]

Someone's immigration status is not a factor. I'm in favor of closing the boarders if there was a high case fatality rate virus spreading abroad. Since it is spreading here it is a moot point.

[paul.karen]

I agree Wally.
Thus we should have better checkpoints at the borders (the legal parts of the borders anyhows).  Where we could quarantine people if need be and get them any meds they may need.

And if i lived in Mexico and worked at a little corner food shanty.  And my baby son or daughter was sick i would think the best way to get treatment is to get into America where doctors are free and where the medicine is available.

The rich are the ones who travel this is true.  But the virus doesnt discriminate on who it attacks. And wally if your daughter/son was sick im sure you could get where you had to be if you wanted to.  Sick or not.

It isnt rich or poor and im not putting blame on anyone.  Heck Bill said at level four the borders should be shut down.  Am i wrong or are we at level 5.

[BigSky]

If it was easy to secure the boarder that would have been done before now for other reasons. People travel between the US and Mexico, the economies are tied together. Turning this into an excuse for anti immigrant hatred does not make sense. The flu doesn't know what passport you have, one person spreading the flu on a flight and in an airport is going to spread this faster then some guy coughing his way across the boarder.

I think if this does start causing severe illness you will see travel restrictions within the US. To slow the spread.

It is your failure to acknowledge and discern between those that are legal immigrants, and those that are illegals that has led you to you trying to turn this into a debate about hate for anti immigrants when no such hate exists. 

As a whole, those for border security have no hate and want immigration law followed.  There is a huge difference between legal immigrants and those that are illegals and thereby criminals.

At the first signs of this the border should have been shut down.  That means only those who are not citizens are refused entry.  Those that are citizens would be checked as they came back.  Accommodations certainly could have been made and precautions taken to let trade continue.

This would have been a temporary measure to determine the severity of the outbreak.  Its always best to err on the side of caution in something like this.

 This failure will more than likely have repercussions with terrorism in the future.

The government has failed in its job.  Even more appalling is the recent commands from DHS that border workers are not to protect themselves by wearing masks.


In the end the media is probably over hyping this.  However the government should have been on top of this from the beginning instead of trying to play catchup and hoping it doesnt get worse.

[Bill Peckham]

The Renal Support Network has guidelines up for people who have severe CKD
H1N1 Flu (Swine Flu) Recommendations for People With Kidney Disease

People on dialysis should maintain their treatment schedule. Providers should provide dialysis in the unit; if you are showing symptoms you should expect to wear a surgical mask during your run.