Thursday, April 30, 2009

Swine Flu: Its time to panic: Official!

Those of you who took note of my last post on the subject, and decided not to panic, well, well done!

However the World Health Organisation has now officially decreed that it is time to panic, raising the level of threat to level 5.

It is difficult to know exactly what to make of this. We in this country do have large stocks of anti virals, which in this case seem effective. That said our stockpile is worth £500 million, which means we are paying in capital costs alone between £12.5 to £25 million to keep it. Right now this looks like good value.

Apparently models have been made which indicate that a complete cut in travel will not stop the spread of the flu (well, unless we go into a real deep lock down) only delay its spread. After all we did get the Black Death.

So what do we need to do?

Firstly don't panic. Secondly follow some very basic old fashioned public health advice. Coughs and sneezes spread diseases. It would also help if you did not panic buy things. That said I may give advice on what to make sure you have stocks of after this panic is over.

The other thing to do is to not go to work if you have the flu, and make sure no one you work with does the same.

The BBC has this.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

you are supposed to wash your hands a lot as well.
Nobody seems to care about influenza A - which can knock off grandad quite easy.

Benedict White said...

Anonymous, yes, you are right, people are also remarkably blaze about "ordinary" flu, which as you say kills as well. In fact it seems to kill around 2,000 per year.

manwiddicombe said...

At this time I'm reminded of the wise words of Pooh Bear ........