My comments on the flu.

[Guest guest]

I know there has been some objection to the media's obsession with this latest

version of the flu, but I think in this case it is warranted.

I have been studying pandemics for a long time. It is a sort of recurring

perseverative interest.

This epidemic does have all the hallmarks of becoming a pandemic of the worst

sort, and I think the more the media throws a scare into people, the better.

Particularly alarming with respect to this strain of flu is its communicability,

the fact that humans have no immunity to it, and its gestation period.

1) It seems highly communicable.

With most flu viruses, it is transmitted via droplets in the air. The same is

the case with this one. But the difference is, that while most of us pick up

viruses by nreathing in someone else's breath, or handling something that they

have sneezed on or touched and then putting our fingers in our mouths or

touching our eyes, this virus seems to infect even if reasonable precautions are

taken.

We can be infected if the microscopic particles touch our eyes for example, thus

a mask will not work, and hand-washing won't either, although it helps.

2) Gestation lasts from 2 to 7 days. So if you get it, you become a carrier

immediately, and you can trasmit the virus between 2 to seven days afteryou get

it. Thus you have people running around seeming perfectly healthy...but they are

like time bombs waiting to go off. You could stand by someone in the supermarket

checkout who is a full fledged carrier on their 7th day of gestation who has no

symptoms yet but is beginning to transmit the virus, and you would never know

it.

3) Our lack of immunity means that everyone who gets it must fight this flu or

die trying, and everytime we fight it, the flu will try to stay alive, which

means it will mutate into a new transmissible form before we kill it or before

it kills us.

Thus any vaccines that are developed to fight this still will not work for

everyone.

This has all the hallmarks of spreading very quickly and being very deadly.

We should all be on the lookout for this virus and take the threat seriously.

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