THE FLU SCARE
more dangerous than the flu itself
picture: dunno source, via our lol builder. lol caption: Budoshi
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THE FLU SCARE
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Wrong, on so many levels.
Kill all Mexicans!
damn Nazi…
Wang warnings have been raised in PK county. Please tune to your local radio station for any updates on Wang status in your area of the county.
My Wang runs free, Thanks…
agree with you,,,,,even i am from them Y_Y,,,,,, I M NOT PATRIOTIC!!! I never liked most of mexicans
Uhh, generally, you’re supposed to actually wear the mask over your nose, too..
Also, surgical masks are pretty useless. They only keep you from spreading the flu, not from getting it.
Like avoiding having people cough on you and washing your hands frequently is a bad thing?
actually in quite a few situations, washing your hands frequently *can* be a bad thing. it dries them out and develops cracks in the epidermis increasing the risk of infection.
However, the point to the caption would be the idiocy that creates a panic over a new flu strain that causes everyone to suddenly go retarded over a rather small number of deaths from “swine flu” when compared to the large number of deaths annually from the non-sensationalized influenza.. The scare tactics cause more disruption to society than the actual virus.
Yeah, but let’s face it — most people are more likely to neglect appropriate handwashing than to overdo it; which was more my (poorly made) point.
What disruption to society aside from a few school closings and maybe rescheduled/cancelled vacations? I don’t recall any rioting in the streets or anything.
I went to the mall with my children this week…had each of us take a Purell bath when we got home…separately…then called in a HAZMAT Unit for complete decon…a mom can never be too safe
Lol…ok, Miss Smarty Pants.
Am I the only person who sees people in public restrooms doing the “oh, yeah, I’m washing my hands” 5-second no-soap flick under the faucet, then?
Nope… I see it all the time, too. I tell my kids all the time (esapecially in a public restroom) that the water has to be more than “lukewarm” and the soap has to “bubble up” in your hands (front and back) and fingers (front and back) before you rinse…then they go touch the doorhandle covered in everyone else’s germs…grab their frenchfries and…ok…I’m never going out again!
That’s what I do. Who needs soap?
No one does, if you live your life in a Hyperbaric chamber.
One of the funniest conversations I’ve heard in a while (a few months ago) was several guys sitting around drinking debating why exactly guys needed to wash their hands after peeing. I believe their ultimate conclusion was that in reality, they should be washing their hands first, because they were pretty sure their hands were dirtier than their dicks. (Maybe you had to be there, but it was really, really funny.)
That is a good point. The dick pretty much stays in the pants while the hands get into everything before touching it.
Lol, exactly…”Well, you took a shower this morning, right? And where’s it been since then? In your pants. Staying clean. Now your hands, they’ve been out picking up dirt and germs everywhere.”
Which leads me to a great pick up line idea…
“If you want a drink in this place, darling, I suggest blowing me. It is the most sanitary thing in here…”
Trust me, the issue that if you were lucky maybe somebody’d want to put that part of your anatomy in their mouth and you wouldn’t want all those hand germs on it was mentioned.
Well the human mouth is nastier than most people’s hands but I am talking trickery, not logic.
Very true!
Great, now I am going to be in a dirty frame of mind all day…
@dwn: …and normally that’s only on days that end in “Y”, right?
Um… yes. >_>
Show them the Mythbusters episode about the distribution of fecal coliform bacteria around their office. (I think it was part of the “five-second rule” myth.)
Basically, everything is disgusting.
So true. Was that the one where they were testing the bacteria level of toothbrushes kept in different rooms and found out they were ALL gross?
I think that was a different one — testing if the brushes got dirty when you flushed with the lid up, maybe?
Yeah, that’s the one I was thinking about. I think the one in the kitchen ended up being dirtiest. So there’s another one that I missed, then? (I LOVE Mythbusters!)
Ditto. (I might be misremembering the details, but I’m pretty sure they were two separate episodes.)
THe episode you’re referring to, Dhoti, dealt with the “5-second Rule” and whether it was true. Turns out that due to Jamie’s almost obsessive bathroom cleaning, the bathroom was actually the cleanest place in the shop based off the cultures. The 5-second Rule was proven to be crap, because you’re going to get germs on whatever falls regardless of how long it’s there.
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I haven’t seen the other ep, but I saw commercials for it.
I personally would rather walk out of the bathroom after touching my own penis, than touch the handles on the sink that has the germs from everyone else’s penis on them! At least I know where mine has been!
And don’t forget the door handle. We wash our hands and then grab the handle to go out after the person before us, who may or may not have washed. Maybe there should be a law that says bathroom doors should open out and not in?
I prefer the places that just have the uturn into the bathroom and avoids doors altogether. its fine to touch the stall doors since i wash my hands after… and i dont feel horribly odd using a paper towel to turn off the faucet (from the forementioned people that dont even use soap) but i just feel like a freak if i use the paper towel to then open the door (and then put my bare hands on the cart, which is JUST as dirty if not worse!)
Hey, I do that too. It may look odd to other’s, but it’s a bit more hygenic. And while it sounds weird, when I go shopping I always wipe down the handle of the cart as well.
i admit to not wiping down the cart handles, but the paper towel to open the door – oh yeah – been doing that for years. drives me nuts at the places that used to only have the blowers – how was i supposed to get out?
but some exposure to normal germs is necessary, otherwise you have no resistance to anything and you get super sick
Normal germs, sure, but I highly doubt that the examples of the epic failure of Darwinism that I see in public bathrooms have anything resembling normal germs
Besides, I work in an office and I get exposed to everyone else’s germs plus their kid’s germs as well. You should see me go ballistic when someone uses my computer or phone. I start wiping down everything is sight!
Oh, and I’d like to add that I very seldom get sick. The last time I had a flu was so long ago I forget what it’s like.
I don’t usually get sick and I spend most of my day in school (A rather dirty sort of place) but I ended up with flu a while ago because sneezing boy shared a pew with me in church… *is displeased*
Many public restrooms, such as those at the ballpark and the summerfest grounds don’t have doors, just concrete privacy walls that you walk around so you don’t have to worry about the handles.
I’m a big fan of kicking the door open myself. Down with latches and doors that open in!
That’s crazy, I was just grumbling about that today. Every bathroom I’ve ever gone into opens in instead of out and it drives me nuts. I usually use the paper towel I dried my hands with to open the door and throw it away elsewhere. Germs=Gross!
I think that the architects figure that bathroom-requiring emergencies are more common than fire emergencies? Just guessing, though.
My Goodness… Folk here are very germ-conscious… *feels dirty*
Yep — I usually see them stop in front of the sink just to fix their hair.
I don’t know how new it is – we had a big swine flu scare in the 70s. And yes, causing a panic is a bad idea, especially these sorts.
Though Joe Biden’s comments (it’s not time to panic but ZOMG it’s time to panic and pull the kids out of school and don’t ride the subway or planes) and Gibbs’ follow up with Jake Tapper saying “That isn’t remotely close to what he said” and Gibbs saying “Well he MEANT to say…” was pretty funny at least.
I don’t think the increased hand washing is the problem. The Chinese government defying all logic and reality and killing all the pigs in the country, locking up all Mexicans and refusing to let them out of their hotel rooms, etc….that’s the problem.
Finally someone makes sense!! I totally agree with you.
But it goes further, now they are locking up Americans, Canadians, British…
Why do I see so many pix of people with the mask covering only their mouth? Do they really believe germs can’t find their way through the nose hairs?
cause they are stupid shits
And/or they don’t want their glasses to fog up? But yeah, common sense isn’t common!
The same people who believe that the germs can’t get to them through the masks? Yes.
Unless a mask is rated as such, it’s useless for preventing most viral infections
Agreed. Viruses get throught the masks. Bla bla bla…The thing is, well…if you are not wearing one people look funny at you. Seriously.
If people look funny at you for not wearing one then that is their retarded fault. All this fuss over a simple flu that isn’t half as bad as most in the past. Sensationalistic media pumping it up to nearly being a lethal plague is a real problem.
Oh noes, our immune systems will actually have something to combat! We’re all doomed!
Possible reasons why flu scare could be worse than flu:
-People who have little chance of contracting (much less dying from) said flu getting vaccinations that would be better saved for vulnerable populations
-More highway/interstate traffic due to fear of airplanes –> more accidents (see http://www.oliverkuss.de/science/publications/Kuss_Gigerenzer_Ecological_Fallacy.pdf)
-People mobbing supermarkets for bottled water, as in any “disaster” situation
-Panic is bad, it leads to anxiety/stress
People need to calm down and stop buying into the media hype.
What really annoys me is that people are usually so unprepared that they actually NEED to get food and water before a disaster. I mean… what, is it so hard to actually stock up a little? A shelf of canned goods, a few gallons of water… Food is NOT that expensive. Even in hurricane country you see them clearing the shelves about two minutes before a hurricane hits.
It’s like they assume they’ll NEVER be unable to get to the store. Yeah, and when your car won’t start and you’re stuck home, or you break your ankle and can’t drive it, or you lose your job and you’re low on food money, or the ice storm hits and the weatherman didn’t catch it, don’t blame anybody but yourself when you’re stuck eating the can of water chestnuts that’s been sitting on your shelf for three years.
Of course, these are the same people who keep their bank accounts with thirty-seven cents in them and spend money on stuff they don’t need instead of saving, so you really can’t expect them to take care of themselves in the first place.
That reminds me of a friend of mine that was so damn proud that he was starting a pantry for a food supply, he wouldn’t shut up about it, not realizing that when you live in a place where you might get snowed in in july, it’s par for the course.
no kidding – i get a bit edgy if i don’t have at least 7 days worth of food extra that can be eaten without power, and i live within walking distance of a grocery store, but it was the way i was raised. not only can you get by if you have to, but then there is always something you can put out if you have unexpected company as well. and if you know you’re not going to lose power there is no excuse for not being able to cook from scratch because flour, rice, etc are cheap and easy to store.
For another reason, you don’t need to look any further back than the US “swine flu outbreak” in the 70′s, 1976, I think.
A 19-year old soldier caught it and died, hundreds more soldiers were infected. Congress panicked and fearing an outbreak ordered the immediate inoculation of the entire US population. They spent $500 million (adjusted) to do so. By the time the inoculations were ready, the flu outbreaks had already all but died out. Fearing a resurgence, though, they went ahead with the plan. When all was said and done, 1 person died of the swine flu – 30 died from reactions to the vaccine.
Because of uninformed panic, we spent $500 million taxpayer dollars to inoculate against a disease that had essentially already passed AND we killed 30 times more people in doing so than the flu did in its entire run.
When the disease is worth panicking over, then by all means panic. This swine flu just ain’t it, though, and th panic can do FAR more harm than good.
Thank you thank you thank you for pointing out how rediculous people are being about this flu scare. Ohhh a whole 42 people died. In Canada alone every year 5000+ people die from the flu and complications from the flu, this H1N1 virus is NOT a big deal. BUT what this has done is shown where countries are lacking in the event of an actual pandemic. do not be surprised in a month or 2 if the WHO steps forward and says it was a test of the world’s handling of a possible pandemic. We got a lot of bugs worked out of the system. The only thing that couldn’t be contained or at least forced to report accurately was the media. They went nuts and cause a lot of uneccesary panic. The virus COULD mutate and most likely will BUT it has an equal chance to mutate to something completely harmless as it does to mutate to something deadly, as it is with ANY flu viruses.
An estimated 36,000 Americans die from good ole fashioned flu strains every year.
Maybe if we had more handwashing and vaccinations, fewer would die of the old fashioned flu in the future? Wouldn’t be a bad thing!
Actually there is a case to be made about oversanitization causing more problems than it is worth. Granted we should fight disease but no to the point that we can’t even handle a sniffle.
Agreed. But as someone with asthma, which would make me the dispensable ‘high risk’, I’ve a respect for some contagion control. Especially since the flu of 1999-2000 gave me pneumonia. Does that mean I should wear a red shirt like in Star Trek?
Yes. Yes it does. And make sure you always request to go with Kirk on the Away Team.
Sigh. All right. But can we choose a red which is flattering? I’d like to make an attractive corpse, if I may!
Dammit, VG, I’m an HR person, not a stylist! *growls fiercely and furrows eyebrows*
How about I wear blue (science after all) and we just ‘understand’ that red is meant, outcome-wise? It is only logical.
*raises eyebrow, without cracking a smile*
I suggest we compromise and put you in a nice shade of purple.
Oh, all right. But most blues tend to work on me. Purples and reds are more variable in flattering my corpse, but I’ll take one for the team.
I know someone who is seeing Star Trek this weekend..
You probably know several someones, knowing this PK crowd!
Not a bad thing, but also not a good one. For people like me with dermatitis, this is hell.
Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you. I don’t think the right response is to meet irrational panic with irrational cynicism, but rather to look at the numbers. (Speaking of which, I think the yearly flu death count is more like 50,000, not 5,000. Worldwide, at least.)
Take those 42 people — do they differ from the people normally killed by the flu, and if so, how? Killing 42 primarily elderly and/or chronically ill people is a lot different than killing 42 primarily health 18-40 year olds. And what do those numbers look like when scaled up?
SARS only killed 774 people, but it was — and still is — a big deal, because it had a death rate of nearly 10% and hit the young and healthy hard.
They’ve been mostly old and young and pregnant so far. High-risk groups. What I don’t like is that this flu hasn’t got a vaccine yet, so more people will get it than usual and stay home instead of working, which will kick the economy while it’s down. I fully expect it to spread as widely as the regular flu and kill its few thousand just like the regular flu does. The economic disruption will be a bigger problem than any deaths. We don’t need this too in a bad money year.
Oh, agreed (although I thought I remembered hearing about more low-risk deaths at the beginning of the outbreak — though that may have just been unsubstantiated hype). My point is that I’ve seen thinking like the OP’s as a knee-jerk reaction to the knee-jerk paranoia, and these are the kinds of questions I want to see people asking.
Think about it this way — big pharma is going to be working overtime to get the strain in this year’s vaccine, and governments are definitely going to be buying. It might end up creating more jobs than it hurts.
That’s a good positive way of looking at it.
If I recall correctly, in America there have been only two deaths from H1N1 – a twelve month-old baby, and a 42 year-old woman with ‘undisclosed’ medical issues. So, you’ve got a kid with a weak immune system, and a woman who probably also had a compromised immune system (can’t say for certain, but is a real possibility). For those kinds of numbers I don’t see why a local school system shut down all of their schools because one kid, ONE had ‘symptoms’ of Swine Flu. Was not diagnosed, but simply had symptoms. And the schools closed for a weak so that they could be cleaned and disinfected.
Yes, be aware – make sure you wash your hands and keep them away from mouth and eyes if you can help it, but don’t freak out that it’s the end of the world.
My best guess is that the person responsible for making the decision was desperate for a week off.
A hero for bored kids city wide.
I know my son was hoping for swine flu at his school.
No such luck.
I laughed when I heard the news story on the radio warning parents not to act all scared about the swine flu, because children *gasp!* take cues from their parents and will act according to what they see.
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Of course, my response to that is “No sh!t, Sherlock”
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Won’t someone think of the children????????
Yeah, do they not say it will be quite bad when it returns in winter?
wasn’t there a story about how not all the deaths in mexico were swine flu deaths, just if anyone died of a fever they called it swine flu and it was done. there’s at least one story of a little girl that broke her leg, it was setting, she got a fever, went untreated and died. they called it swine flu but it suspiciously sounds like bone infection.
I’ll have to venture off for paper source though. this info came from radio
no. Deaths may be suspected of being related to H1N1, but confirmatory testing is done at the time of diagnosis or post-mortem in the cases of death.
The WHO is continually adjusting numbers and will only list CONFIRMED H1N1 cases/deaths (which is why they run lower than prop!media).
I’d say more than 50,000 worldwide, since 36,000 can be attributed to the flu (directly or indirectly) just in the US
Actually, the annual worldwide flu death total is MUCH higher than 50k. We have something like 30k deaths from flu and flu complications in the US alone each year.
Just for you…
[LINK]
I think this flu just gave more people a reason to make a fashion statement with the mask.
Seriously, the media blows anything they get their hands on out of proportion. And yes, washing your hands constantly with anti-bacterial soap can be a bad thing.
Yup. Link.
REAL men spit on their hands and wipe ‘em on their shirts! Soap…hmpf.
Real men piss on their hands and keep working.
Real men can take a piss without getting any on their hands at all….
Real men consider piss the ultimate disinfectant.
You actually have a valid point. A study was done sometime back that indicated urine can help eliminate foot fungus. The implication? Peeing in the shower isn’t a bad thing. Not that I have any personal knowledge, I’ve never had foot fungus..
Clearly this is because you pee in the shower.
Hey, somebody had to go there.
LOL! I suppose so, at least it was someone I like!
Ancient Romans used urine as mouthwash.
But they had no way of knowing its antiseptic properties…
Ok, ew.
And….WHYYY? Oh, and “ew” again.
Real men piss on electric fences and let the electricity kill the germs.
Then they grab ‘em to dry off.
And then floss with barbed wire and kick the door down to leave. Lesser men will put the door back up.
Chuck Norris will watch you put the door back up, kick it down, and use your face to sand it smooth.
I knew I was glad that I didn’t shave today for a reason…
A personal source from Guadalajara says that all think it is a conspiracy, and that there actually was no flu. Dunno myself.
the people who are afraid of swine flu are the same people who had clear wrap and tape in case of chemical warfare. this is just the flavor of the month
The caption’s statement is clearly true. The kid looks more like a ninja, just disguised by the surgical mask and cute.
Meh… I like the swine flu picture I’ve got linked in my name better. Too bad that guy didn’t post it over here.
haha i think that one is much funnier
AHAHAHA WIN
TRUE.
What’s funny is that they are talking about a vaccine. In the 70′s more people died from the vaccine that the swine flu.
That lady needs to wear lighter earrings. The way the ones she’s wearing weigh down her middle-aged ear lobe just looks gross.
That’s sadly one of the first things I noticed -_-
Damn! Now that you’ve mentioned it, I can’t NOT look.
No pix for the old-lobed. It’s agreed then.
Perhaps the woman in the pic also has foil hats in her diaper bag?
I have yet to see anyone walking around with masks.