Mexico shuts schools, museums to stop flu outbreak

[touchring]

Re: Mexico shuts schools, museums to stop flu outbreak

flu might be in north america half a globe away, but the N95 masks already sold out at pharmacies in my neighborhood. going to the hospital pharmacy tomorrow. lol

btw, stuff like tamiflu and relenza, i don't believe they work, otherwise people won't be dying.

[jtabeb]

Re: Strong earthquake felt in Mexico City

My God. They don't need this:



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090427/...ico_earthquake

What comes next, locusts or frogs?

Yeah, B-A-D.

[ocelotl]

Re: Mexico shuts schools, museums to stop flu outbreak

http://www.thenews.com.mx/home/tnhome.asp?cve_home=1443
http://www.thenews.com.mx/home/tnhome.asp?cve_home=1444
http://www.thenews.com.mx/home/tnArt...ve_cont=316922
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...SS&attr=797093
http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/200...rism-swine-flu
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/loc...tory?track=rss
http://www.reuters.com/article/domes...e=domesticNews
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/story.aspx?guid={85DE20FD-7878-42F1-9D10-CA1303312A32}&siteid=rss
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/147693.php
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk...1466-23484467/
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_3298778.html?menu=
http://tvnz.co.nz/content/2681143
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/mexico-airline-etfs-hit-hog/story.aspx?guid={F2DF70DB-E4C1-4711-8109-3491E88085F5}&siteid=rss
http://news.morningstar.com/newsnet/...00327_univ.xml
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php...show_article=1
http://es.quote.com/news/story.actio...04270958001245
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/147667.php
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/s...us-states.html
http://www.timminspress.com/ArticleD...aspx?e=1541584
http://www.seattlepi.com/health/1500...tml?source=rss
http://business.inquirer.net/money/b...from-US-Mexico
http://archive.gulfnews.com/world/Ch.../10308127.html
http://www.canoe.ca/Travel/News/2009...259936-ap.html
http://www.marketwire.com/press-rele...CM-979967.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/polit...e=politicsNews
http://www.gadsdentimes.com/article/...a-Health-Scare
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew...426?hub=Canada
http://money.canoe.ca/News/TopPhoto/...254231-ap.html
http://news.morningstar.com/newsnet/...00148_univ.xml
http://www.timesofoman.com/innercat.asp?detail=24649
http://www.timesofoman.com/innercat.asp?detail=24656
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk...1466-23482452/
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php...show_article=1
http://english.sina.com/world/p/2009/0427/236935.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/0...ref=rss_health
http://www.theprovince.com/Health/Si...675/story.html
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...tory?track=rss
http://en.rian.ru/world/20090427/121321075.html
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/99c57e4e-3...nclick_check=1
http://www.newkerala.com/nkfullnews-1-27942.html
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/ar...568910&ref=rss

How about this as worldwide coverage?

Streets are almost empty, Army is giving away masks per millions, I just heard that the rest of the country schools are going to be closed from today to next May 6th. As I live within two miles from one of the main entrance routes to Mexico City Airports, I can tell air traffic is not heavily affected, but I cannot speak about attendance to any particular flight.

About the quake... It was strong and felt here in Mexico City, but remember that in the triangle between Puerto Escondido, Zihuatanejo and Mexico City we have a 6.0 every year and a half, a 6.5 to 7.0 every 3 years and a half and the big one of 8.1 in Sept. 19th 1985 represented damages to around 5% of the entire city.

[flintlock]

Re: Mexico shuts schools, museums to stop flu outbreak

"But, no-one will ever give you any correct information for free!"

The answer I got from a female lawyer, married to a procurator, in Tashkent when I asked for some as I thought simple tax law info.

Correction: "no LAWYER will ever give you any correct information for free"!

Fred's explanation makes perfect sense to me, I retract my "kind of tacky" statement.

[Sapiens]

Re: Strong earthquake felt in Mexico City

My God. They don't need this:



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090427/...ico_earthquake

What comes next, locusts or frogs?

Take the frogs, we can export the legs.

[jtabeb]

Re: Mexico shuts schools, museums to stop flu outbreak

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090424/.../med_swine_flu



The game is on... Here is the perfect kill the creditor solution. --//Tin foil hat on.//--

Getting interesting here in San Antonio. No sports practice/games. Schertz/Cibolo school district NO SCHOOL this week. They closed a Major Super-center type grocery store. Our base clinic is right out of the move "outbreak", everyone is masked and gowned, NO ENTRY into the Clinic W/O Bio-Decon procedures FOR EVERYONE. Either this is way-overblown (which is okay, better safe than sorry in this case) or they are expecting this to be VV bad.

Anyway, update from the SA.

[goadam1]

Re: Mexico shuts schools, museums to stop flu outbreak

This is a simulation done by Los Alamos on a bird or swine flu. You can watch a quicktime of the spread. Basically at this stage all is well. By day 30 you see trouble. It takes 90 days to peak and burn out.

http://www.lanl.gov/news/images/avianflu.shtml

[goadam1]

Re: Mexico shuts schools, museums to stop flu outbreak

From the page:
Simulation of a pandemic flu outbreak in the continental United States, initially introduced by the arrival of 10 infected individuals in Los Angeles. The spatiotemporal dynamics of the prevalence (number of symptomatic cases at any point in time), is shown on a logarithmic color scale, from 1 or fewer (blue) to 100 or more (red) cases per 1,000 persons. Without vaccination, antiviral drugs, or other mitigation strategies, the entire nation becomes infected within a few months. Depending on the reproductive number R0, effective intervention strategies including vaccination and targeted antiviral prophylaxis can be successful without resorting to economically damaging measures like school closure, quarantine, and work or travel restrictions. This large-scale agent-based simulation involves 280 million people, and uses demographic and worker flow data at the Census tract level, as well as long-range travel statistics, to describe the geographic movement of people. In this simulation, long-range travel is assumed to occur at a lower-than-normal rate (10 percent) due to travel advisories, but with no other mitigation strategies the pandemic quickly spreads nationwide, peaking about 90 days after the initial introduction.




I guess you don't want economically damaging things like travel restrictions or school closings.

I think itulipers, who love gold because they don't trust the banks, should do some preparing.

[goadam1]

Re: Mexico shuts schools, museums to stop flu outbreak

ej's suggested preparation page:

http://www.pandemicflu.gov/plan/tab3.html

I'm not suggesting panic, just common sense. You have flashlights and water in earthquake and Hurricane zones.

[KGW]

Origin: CAFO(concentrated animal feeding operation) by Granjas Carroll/Smithfield Hams

Posted to a newsgroup I subscribe to:


PS. I included the whole message trail from the COMFOOD-L discussion group where this info originated.

----- Original Message -----
From: Livable Future
To: Ken Dahlberg
Cc: P. Hay | Rabbit Mountain LLC ; COMFOOD Listerv
Sent: Monday, April 27, 2009 4:11 PM
Subject: [COMFOOD:] Re: Re: Swine flu & Smithfield foods - protective quarantines of CAFOs?


Hey Ken,

We (Johns Hopkins School of Public Health's Center for a Livable Future) just published a new post on our blog, LivableFutureBlog.com, that might answer at least a few of your questions. Here's the text and the URL to the post. Also, we created a page on our blog, "Swine Flu," that provides recent blog and news coverage and resources from Hopkins and other sources. Hope that helps!

_________
"Not If, When:" What We Can Learn From Latest Swine Flu Outbreak"

Ralph Loglisci

The World Health Organization is poised to raise the pandemic threat level as a deadly strain of the swine virus shows no sign of slowing down, according to a latest Reuters report. The New York Times reports that the number of people killed by the virus has climbed to 149 in Mexico and 8 of the 20 confirmed cases in the U.S. were diagnosed in New York City.

Reuters says the change in threat levels would indicate that the virus has mutated to the point that it is being transmitted from person to person more easily. According to an earlier Reuters report the CDC’s early analysis determined the virus strain, which is designated H1N1 (similar to the “Spanish Flu” which killed tens of millions of people in the early 20th Century) contains DNA from swine, human and avian viruses.

There are blogs and reports that suggest ground zero for the recent swine flu outbreak are hog farms in Mexico. This is difficult to confirm and it may be too early to make the connection. But it does shine a spotlight on the very real public health threats concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), particularly hog and poultry, pose on local and global communities.

While working for the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production I met with several infectious disease experts who were concerned that raising animals in a highly concentrated manner creates the perfect condition for viruses and other potentially deadly pathogens to quickly mutate into more viral forms. One of the largest concerns for Dr. Greg Gray, Director, Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the University of Iowa College of Public Health, was that livestock workers are not included as priority targets for pandemic surveillance, or for vaccination and treatment in a pandemic. As noted by the PCIFAP final report “…agricultural workers serve as a bridging population between their communities and animals in large confinement facilities.”

When talking with experts about the possibilities of another influenza pandemic as devastating as the 1918 “Spanish Flu”, the statement I heard the most was: “It’s not if it will happen, it’s when.” If this isn’t the big one, this outbreak aptly demonstrates the need for better surveillance, so we can catch the next pandemic before the cat’s out of the bag (i.e. multinational transmission). Surveillance should include all pathways of transmission: animal-to-animal, animal-to-human, and human-to-human.


_________

Best,

Chris


On Mon, Apr 27, 2009 at 10:04 AM, Ken Dahlberg wrote:

Greetings Paula and all,


If you haven't looked at the timeline Paula included ( the link to which may not be included here), you can do so at http://biosurveillance.typepad.com/b...of-events.html


I have a question for those of you more familiar with epidemiology, human/animal virus interactions, and plans to deal with potential pandemics like birdflu.


Since it appears that the likely origin of this virus was in a Mexican CAFO with flies as one intermediary, shouldn't national health agencies institute two types of protective quarantines of swine CAFOs? The two types would be 1) containment regarding the one(s) in Mexico that appear to be breeding reservoirs for the virus, and 2) preventive regarding 'uninfected' CAFOs which we need to prevent from becoming breeding reservoirs. The latter might possibly require not only attention to flies, but to humans working at or visiting CAFOs and other means of transmission like shipments of pigs.


Also, how do we try to get health authorities and the media to address these kinds of questions assuming they are relevant?


Ken






On Apr 25, 2009, at 8:55 AM, P. Hay | Rabbit Mountain LLC wrote:


Greetings all,

This morning I've been reading about the swine flu outbreak in Mexico which
now appears to be crossing the US border, with 5 confirmed cases in CA and 2
in TX. In Mexico, 68 people have died.

According to the swine flu timeline put together by a company called
Veratect, who evidently map infection disease events for clients like the
WHO & CDC:

"Residents [of La Gloria, Perote Municipality, Veracruz State, Mexico]
believed the outbreak had been caused by contamination from pig breeding
farms located in the area. They believed that the farms, operated by Granjas
Carroll, polluted the atmosphere and local water bodies, which in turn led
to the disease outbreak. According to residents, the company denied
responsibility for the outbreak and attributed the cases to 'flu.' However,
a municipal health official stated that preliminary investigations indicated
that the disease vector was a type of fly that reproduces in pig waste and
that the outbreak was linked to the pig farms. It was unclear whether health
officials had identified a suspected pathogen responsible for this
outbreak." (1)

Granjas Carroll is a subsidiary of Smithfield Foods. According to the
Smithfield Foods website, Granjas Carroll produced 950,000 hogs in fiscal
2008. (2)

So now it looks like Big Ag is not only responsible for poisoning people
directly with contaminated foods, but also for unleashing a deadly pandemic.

My question for the list -- is this even theoretically possible with
small-scale organic hog farming?

Here's the CDC's statement about H1N1 swine influenza virus:
http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/?s_cid=tw_epr_55

CNN: Texas family quarantined with swine flu virus:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/25/swine.flu.family/

(1) http://tr.im/jGuP -- this is the timeline, it is quite detailed and
includes much important information

(2) http://tr.im/jGv6

Thanks,
-Paula

---
Paula Hay - Owner, Principal
Rabbit Mountain, LLC
Print & Digital Communications
814.321.2368 | paula@rabbit-mountain.com
http://rabbit-mountain.com

[Master Shake]

Re: Mexico shuts schools, museums to stop flu outbreak

was in a extra acerbic mood last night. sorry... but your accusations of 'non-kosher' are way off base.. you are free to pay or not. your choice... and your repeated opinion that you ought to get paid or get a discount for your brilliant posts... well... think about how that makes others feel.

i'd pay for grg's and jk's posts and rogermex and a bunch of others. as a matter of fact, i do. we all pay to have a forum to go to that's not run like a boys' club/pesonality cult (ann's post was over the top but she's spot on with the dk comments). disagree with dk and your thread goes to 'tin foil hat'. disagree more and you're banned. did you see ej's posts there last week? goes there to defend himself and for the trouble dk accuses him of spam! what an a**hole.

free advice... don't be like the guy who walks into your favorite bar & grill and starts bitching about the food and the service and the lighting and it's too hot and or too cold and the drinks too watery and the bartender has a bad attitude and the other patrons are not as smart as you are...

what do you figure the other patrons think of that guy?

OK, who's dk?

[Guest]

Re: Mexico shuts schools, museums to stop flu outbreak

was in a extra acerbic mood last night. sorry... but ... we all pay to have a forum to go to that's not run like a boys' club/pesonality cult

Metalman - I honestly sometimes get the impression you "run this place" in terms of your policing what opinions around here are vetted and acceptable. And as far as "personality cult" is concerned, perhaps you are not the best schoolmaster to be scolding people about that as you sometimes verge upon the obsessive insisting upon all the "main itulip themes". Frankly the above sounds like a lot of lofty and editorialising opinion to this set of ears, as on frequent occasions you can become exceedingly pugnacious to other posters here, merely on the grounds that you consider their thesis foolish.

I'm not overstating the point. You do demonstrate - day after day of methodical and nasty harrying of some members, and it seems the spark for this behavior is merely that they may be too persistently posting ideas antithetical to iTulip's thesis.

They don't need to have been poorly mannered to spark this reaction in you - all that's required is that their thesis veers too far away from an iTulip vetted thesis - and you are gnawing at them and trying to drum up the level of generalised jeering, like you were some sort of self appointed classroom proctor. So I'm wondering, what fine distinctions do you draw, between that kind of enthusiastic policing, and the how boy's clubs tend to be run? I really like 95% of your contributions, but this "we all pay for a forum not run like a boy's club" is a bit rich when compared to your penchant for persistent and determined rants against "dissident viewpoints". Do one, or do the other. But don't be zealously policing the thinking around here on one hand, and then decrying "boy's clubs" on the other.

I think your comment above is rubbish, for these reasons. I would appreciate your finally putting a cork in all of those jeering exercises. Spend some more time with your family, or with your work, and come in here with a little less of that missionary zeal. If there is a single person in this community who verges upon drumming up a personality cult, it's you.

[jtabeb]

Re: Mexico shuts schools, museums to stop flu outbreak

OK, who's dk?

DK= "Don't Know"

[nitroglycol]

Re: Mexico shuts schools, museums to stop flu outbreak

A Canadian health agency is warning against travel to Mexico, where there's an outbreak of human swine flu, unless absolutely necessary.
The Public Health Agency of Canada issued the warning late Monday, saying travellers should postpone any non-essential travel to the country until further notice.
The agency urged travellers to take precautionary measures such as getting a flu shot, frequently washing their hands, and covering coughs and sneezes.
The United States issued a similar warning earlier Monday, suggesting "non-essential travel to Mexico be avoided."
The warnings come despite World Health Organization officials advising against travel restrictions or border closures. The WHO says such restrictions will not stop the spread of the virus, and have instead called on countries to boost domestic efforts to contain the spread of the illness.
Dr. Keiji Fukuda, the WHO’s assistant director general, said Monday that "a pandemic is not considered inevitable at this time," but cautioned people who are ill to delay travel.

From the CBC. I have to disagree with the WHO on this; you have to take action before a pandemic is considered inevitable if you want to have a reasonable chance of controlling the situation. In fact, if it were up to me I'd be recommending against all non-essential travel period, including domestic travel. Of course the travel industry would have a fit if that happened.

[metalman]

Re: Mexico shuts schools, museums to stop flu outbreak

Metalman - I honestly sometimes get the impression you "run this place" in terms of your policing what opinions around here are vetted and acceptable. And as far as "personality cult" is concerned, perhaps you are not the best schoolmaster to be scolding people about that as you sometimes verge upon the obsessive insisting upon all the "main itulip themes". Frankly the above sounds like a lot of lofty and editorialising opinion to this set of ears, as on frequent occasions you can become exceedingly pugnacious to other posters here, merely on the grounds that you consider their thesis foolish.

10 yrs ago there was itulip. ej had a couple of good insights that helped me and others avoid losing our shirts in the dot com crash. as unique as those insights/observations were, it was cave man stuff. there i was 10 years ago, trying to light a fire by rubbing sticks together, huddled in my cave, scratching signs in the dirt, wiping my ass with dried leaves... all very unpleasant, i'm here to tell you. all before i understood how asset bubbles work, the fire economy, debt deflation, the role of the media... the whole ball of wax... the enlightenment. the turn in gold was called, the start of the bear market we're in... and many others, based on the framework built here. now i set the thermostat for 68 and use an indoor toilet.

over the years, the knowledge here grew and grew on that early foundation into a large, intricate framework of understanding... how the world or makets and the economy really works. over that time, others come and go (remember tet?) with their 'theories' but these are not built on anything solid but the latest newsletter, half baked conspiracy theory or wisedom picked up by reading motley fool or reading the wsj. the acid test of a good theory vs bad... predictiveness.

I'm not overstating the point. You do demonstrate - day after day of methodical and nasty harrying of some members, and it seems the spark for this behavior is merely that they may be too persistently posting ideas antithetical to iTulip's thesis.

time to time a guy shows up here who is much as i was 10 years ago... huddled in his cave, scratching signs in the dirt, wiping his ass with dried leaves... except instead of availing himself of the knowledge developed here over 10 yrs attempts to lecture me on the benefits of the caveman life. he wants to take me back to those dark old times... he revels in his ignorance... takes pride in it... even tho his caveman ideas have produced not a one accurate forecast of anything.

take housing. a new guy here thinks housing is in a new bull market. as a starting point if he wants to be convincing, start with showing a record like this...



...then add to it. if not starting with as good or better track record as a starting point, well... what's there to talk about?

if i were running this site i'd make readers take a ten question test before they are allowed to post...

1. what is the fire economy?
2. what are the building blocks of an asset bubble?
3. what is debt deflation?
4. what options do governments have to stop deflation?
5. which do they take any why?
6. others...

if they pass, they can post and if not they can't. that way we're not spending time attempting to educate the cave men/women... and the uneducatable won't bother us.

They don't need to have been poorly mannered to spark this reaction in you - all that's required is that their thesis veers too far away from an iTulip vetted thesis - and you are gnawing at them and trying to drum up the level of generalised jeering, like you were some sort of self appointed classroom proctor. So I'm wondering, what fine distinctions do you draw, between that kind of enthusiastic policing, and the how boy's clubs tend to be run? I really like 95% of your contributions, but this "we all pay for a forum not run like a boy's club" is a bit rich when compared to your penchant for persistent and determined rants against "dissident viewpoints". Do one, or do the other. But don't be zealously policing the thinking around here on one hand, and then decrying "boy's clubs" on the other.

caveman talk sets me off. i won't go back!

I think your comment above is rubbish, for these reasons. I would appreciate your finally putting a cork in all of those jeering exercises. Spend some more time with your family, or with your work, and come in here with a little less of that missionary zeal. If there is a single person in this community who verges upon drumming up a personality cult, it's you.

i already apologized for implying brother jtabeb is a socialist. that was low!