Sunday, January 07, 2007

January 6 Flu Update

The bird in Hong Kong is now confirmed H5N1.

Somebody was caught trying to smuggle avian vaccine into Thailand.

In a West Virginia county, the school superintendents were informed by the health department that they might have to close up in a pandemic.


The Red Cross in Tennessee is doing some public education on bird flu as well.

1 Comments:

At 12:01 PM, Blogger Wulfgang said...

Orange;

Not much to comment on today Orange – I even visited the Effective Measure site to see if you might have missed something important, but Revere seems to be bogged down with M. Randolph Kreuger and a fellow bloggers on philosophical discussions of Round Manhole Covers and the War in Iraq. Nah, I’ll pass on that.

From your articles today, it never ceases to amaze me about the disparity in the communications and information that local public health officers present to the public regarding avian influenza. Specifically, in the Salem News article, Health Dept Director, Robert Morehead, says “ … schools will need to be closed in a moment’s notice if the flu hits”. He also asked for permission to use the schools permission to use the school buildings for sites to provide vaccination shots, if required. This kind of realistic, consistent and hard hitting message, should be going on throughout the entire country.

In the Murfreesboro Post article, I noticed that their local Red Cross chapter is also offering a “deluxe emergency preparedness kit” for approximately $ 70. It lists quite a few basic things that every family should have, in advance of an emergency. Helen Branswell recently published a similar list recently, but I doubt most people listen to this sound advice. Florida Medic, on his website recently, also published two excellent articles on inexpensive LED efficient lights and two-way radios, to have in an emergency. Absolutely excellent information that every one should know.

Maybe I’m too jaded in my old age, but I think people really need to pay attention to disaster preparedness and getting down to the basics of life. The associated problems threatening North America from global warming, tornado’s, tsunamis, earthquakes, pandemics, blizzards and hurricanes (and yes, volcano’s), just to name a few, are not going to go away. I guess people naively believe the government, science, or technological advances are all going to rush in at the last minute, like the best Hollywood version of the Les Trois Mousquetaires, and save the day. Government, science and technology are actually part of the major problem in many instances

If you haven’t see it, see this fascinating short video that Stephen Hawking, the world’s most brilliant physicist and quantum gravity expert, sent to Yahoo, in 2006, and his predictions:

http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=178f89d3d9987efabcf31c6fb8364fd6.654968

Wulgang

 

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