It’s a great time to rob a bank

[Chuck Bao]

Because everyone’s wearing masks these days. Okay, not everyone in Thailand wears masks. I’m not about to wear a mask. I’d say that about 10% of mass transit riders are now wearing masks and about 20-30% of those in the theater watching the opening night of the new Harry Potter movie last night were.

Health Ministry warnings to avoid public areas whenever possible were not going to dissuade me from seeing the new Harry Potter movie. Two office colleagues, also Harry Potter nuts, went with me and wore masks and they brought one for me.

You know, you can’t eat popcorn while wearing a mask. These two, otherwise pretty intelligent peope, only wore their masks during the movie, not before the opening scene or after the closing credits. I find that a bit funny. One of my colleagues apparently did find a way to eat MY popcorn under his mask. The theater should have given everyone Death Eater masks, which could have made the silliness a little more fun.

I know swine flu isn’t making news very much in the US these days, but it is in Asia. H1N1 is spreading like wildfire in Thailand now.

People here are calling it Ahtch One En One, instead of swine flu. Why? Giving the pigs a break on this one or trying to avoid the hysteria of bird flu when nobody would eat chicken? The first time I heard my colleagues talking about somebody having Ahtch One En One, I had to ask: “Ate what one in what?”

According to the World Health Organization’s website, the countries in the South-East Asia Region with confirmed cases are as follows:

22 in Bangladesh
229 in India
112 in Indonesia
2 in Myanmar
14 in Nepal
37 in Sri Lanka
4,057 in Thailand

Thailand announced this week that it will stop reporting the number of cases. All Bangkok Metropolitan schools were closed for five days this week so that the schools could be sterilized.

While I was on vacation in the US, my company mounted hand sterilizing dispensers on the walls around the client trading rooms. They didn’t do that for employee areas. I told my co-workers that it is a great time for sick leave.

For you international travelers, you have to be aware that you could get quarantined if you have a fever. While I was traveling to the US, I had a plane change in Seoul. They wouldn’t allow anyone into the airport who didn’t answer a questionnaire. I don’t think anyone would truthfully answer these questions even if they were sick: “I have not been sick over the last two weeks”, “I have not had a fever over the last two weeks”, “I have not had a sore throat over the last two weeks”, “I have not had a cough over the last two weeks”, etc.

Then they made all of us queue up single file under an infrared camera. Somebody was suggesting splashing cold water on their face before joining the queue. Somebody else jokingly suggested putting ice cubes in their mouth.

So, I’m fearless and mask free at the moment. I’d still wear a Death Eater mask, though.

[yermom]

pig****ers, the lot of you

seriously though, those numbers seem crazy. what is the difference?

[Chuck Bao]

Good question, Yermom.

I think there is a lot of under-reporting and has been so since the initial outbreak in Mexico.

That is what I thought at the beginning. How could so many tourists go to so many different places in Mexico and return to their home country with infection from the virus?

So, the initial death toll was so way over-stated and the spread so way under-stated.

This WHO website on confirmed cases is interesting.

http://www.who.int/csr/don/2009_07_06/en/index.html

It is the southern hemisphere that is getting the bulk of the new confirmed cases. But, Thailand which basically has only two seasons - wet and dry - is up there with them. It can spread in the tropics.

To answer your question, I think there is still a lot of under-reporting. Now, Thailand won’t be announcing and I’m sure that has something to do with tourism and the reality that this bug isn’t really so lethal. There is still the fear that the second phase of it in the US this fall could be bad.

I’m still liking the fact that this non-lethal strain is still giving us a good test run.

According to that website:

North America
US 33,902
Mexico 10,262
Canada 7,983

Europe
UK 7,447
Germany 505
France 310
Italy146
Spain 776

Southern Hemisphere and Latin America
Australia 5,298
Brazil 737
Chile 2,040
New Zealand 1,059
Peru 916

Asia
China 2,040
Indonesia 20
Japan 1,790
Malaysia 112
Philippines 1,709
Singapore 1,055
South Korea 202
Thailand 2,076 *
Vietnam 181

* Now confirmed to be 4,057.

[Chuck Bao]

I just noticed this article on the MSNBC website. It seems that everyone has given up on keeping track of the infection rate.


Swine flu tally halted as school year fears loom
Officials stop counting cases, focus on possible mutation of new virus
msnbc.com staff and news service reports updated 6:32 p.m. ET July 17, 2009

Worldwide cases of the new H1N1 swine flu virus are spreading so fast that overwhelmed global health officials have stopped counting and officials with the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say they'll soon follow suit.

But that's likely only a preview of what will happen in the fall — or even sooner — when a surge of new cases is likely to emerge as families resume more normal schedules after the summer break.

"We don't know the extent of the challenges that we'll face in the weeks and months ahead," said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the National Center for the Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, adding later: "I'm expecting when school reopens and kids are all back together, in some communities at least we may seen an increase."

Schuchat did not elaborate on how the CDC would inform the public about the extent of the outbreak, which has been confirmed in more than 40,600 people and implicated in 263 deaths in the United States. WHO had reported nearly 95,000 cases including 429 deaths worldwide. But the numbers are outdated, with Britain estimating it had 55,000 new cases last week alone.

However, she urged families and communities to start thinking now about alternate plans if the virus disrupts daily life — and if planned vaccines are delayed or available only to targeted groups. Schuchat added, however, that production of an H1N1 vaccine remains on schedule.

"We're really on track and not concerned about meeting expectations," she said.

WHO stops tracking individual cases
Earlier Friday, WHO officials said tracking individual swine flu cases is too overwhelming for countries where the virus is spreading widely. WHO will no longer issue global totals of swine flu cases, although it will continue to track the global epidemic.

WHO says countries should look for signs the virus is mutating, such as changes in the way swine flu is spreading, surges in hospital visits or more severe cases.

“We agree that the idea of the individual case count probably is not the way to track what’s going on,” said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

The virus, which has been declared a pandemic, is causing severe disease and deaths in older children and younger adults in the Southern Hemisphere, just as it has in the United States, Schuchat said.

The new virus, which officials estimate has infected millions of people, is thriving in spite of the heat and humidity of summer in the U.S., Schuchat noted. Usually respiratory viruses such as flu do not circulate well in summer months.

Schuchat said this was probably because so many people do not have immunity to H1N1, and not because the virus has some unusual biological properties.

Pregnant women also often have more serious symptoms and are more likely to die, just as with seasonal flu, Schuchat said. The same pattern is being seen in Southern Hemisphere countries like Argentina, she said.

The virus has spread fast, Schuchat said. "We have seen this virus reach every country in a matter of weeks and months and not years," she said.

Vaccine concerns
Thursday, Baxter International, one of the companies making H1N1 vaccine for the U.S. market and four other countries, said Thursday it could not take any more orders.

But Schuchat said she was not worried.

Four other companies make flu vaccines for the U.S. market — GlaxoSmithKline Plc, Novartis AG, Sanofi-Aventis SA and AstraZeneca, through its MedImmune unit.

Some companies have said they are not able to make as much vaccine as they had hoped because of the way the virus grows in eggs.

"Based on what has been described to us so far, it has been in the range of our planning assumptions, but that doesn't mean we won't see more surprises," Schuchat said.

WHO has said new samples of virus are being sent to companies to see if they grow better in eggs.

Trials set to begin
Tests of the new H1N1 vaccine are likely to get underway in August and Schuchat and other officials stressed that these tests in people will be crucial to knowing how much vaccine will be needed — and available.

"We do not know how effective an H1N1 vaccine will be in different populations," Schuchat said.

Most people infected with H1N1 are never tested, so any count of confirmed cases only represents a fraction of the true infections.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

[Crucifax Autumn]

If I lived over there I'd rob ALL the banks!