"Swine Flu"

txstatebass · #1 05-01-2009, 12:57 PM

I've had two gigs canceled because of the swine flu. Definitely the first time I had a cancellation due to global pandemic. Anyone else have this going on? How would we deal with it if they stopped allowing public events? I don't want to get political (that's against the rules). Let's just talk solutions here.

Steve Clark · #2 05-01-2009, 01:32 PM

The level of hysteria seems to be growing. My son has been given a letter by his school that he has to stay home for 10 days if the exhibit flu symptoms. And Texas is much closer to the source than little London, Ontario.

Certainly this outbreak should not be ignored but 30,000+ die each year in the US of 'regular' flu. Seems we are jumping on the 24 hour news cycle "Don't panic" bandwagon by . . . panicking. Not sure if I went political there but it sure seems like an over reaction to cancel your shows unless there was clear evidence linking to someone with the virus having attended the venue and sneezed all over the place. But I don't know how you get around it. Turning off the TV might be an idea.

I sure don't want to be proven wrong on this one though.

Earl · #3 05-01-2009, 01:49 PM

Here's an interesting article to check out:

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/ar...Swine-Flu.aspx

fingers · #4 05-01-2009, 01:51 PM

I think John Stewart said it best.

shadygrove · #5 05-01-2009, 08:16 PM

+1 on John Stewart... that was way funny. Yeah this could be serious, but let's keep a little perspective.

the upside of swine flu is now if I feel a little ooky my employer will make me stay home and practice bass for a week just in case it might be swine flu. Before I could only get one, maybe two days of woodshed on sick leave unless I was too sick to practice and what's the point of that? May as well be moping around at work and infecting my coworkers

Now it's "stay home !"

Brent Nussey · #6 05-01-2009, 08:21 PM

When the SARS scare happened a few years ago, the one centered on China and Toronto, a friend of mine was playing Cats on tour through Asia. The show closed and everyone was sent home. I had a gig scheduled for a big international event in Seoul, also cancelled. That panic passed, and this one will too. My friend is back touring with Cats around Asia, and everything's fine. Well, it's Cats, so I don't know if "everything's fine" is exactly right, but you know what I mean.

On the upside a couple I know took a very inexpensive trip to Beijing around this time. They said it was wonderful, not crowded at all. Everyone was scared and wearing the little masks. 5 years later, they held the Olympics there.....

EggyToast · #7 05-02-2009, 09:07 AM

The thing about swine flu is that we don't know anything about it. Could it suddenly mutate and pick up steam, killing people (10% of the population) like the 1918 flu? Maybe it'll just make everyone sick -- but could that affect infrastructure like food shipping?

There's no reason to panic, but there's plenty of reason to take this as another example of why it's good to have some disaster preparedness materials around the house. Swine flu may never hit your neighborhood... but could you have a major power outage? A hurricane? Flooding? If so, do you have enough non-perishable food to last a week, maybe more?

The thing about a pandemic is that it means that it can spread easily between people. It doesn't say anything about the severity. For the 1918 flu, 30% of the population got it -- which means 70% of the population was perfectly fine. It still killed more people than WWI, and because it's a virus there's little to be done. For the new H1N1 novel virus, we're in the same boat -- we have no way to fight it other than targeted use of tamiflu-tyle drugs and limiting exposure.

Hopefully we won't have to deal with it. That's no reason to say it's hype and pointedly refuse to wash your hands and cough on people. The whole point is that there's no way to know, and there's a few things people should be aware of because of that situation.

What you're experiencing is one of the potential problems. While it's lame to cancel gigs and other public events when there's no outbreak in the area, if/when it does pick up speed, are you prepared for a mass cancellation/closure of public events/spaces?

zeytoun · #8 05-02-2009, 12:35 PM

Yes it could - but, (1) the CDC can monitor the disease and prepare a vaccine without the news creating a panic and (2) it's nonsensical to spend too much energy preparing for hypothetical disasters when there are so many real risks that can be mitigated.

I don't think anyone's advocating coughing on people and avoiding washing your hands. And sure, it's a good idea to have emergency supplies ready in general.

BTW, tamiflu is a bad idea. It is minimally effective against swine flu (I think 15% effective at shortening symptoms by a day or so, if I remember correctly), and comes with flu-like side-effects that can be fatal on their own.

--

Funny, I was listening to NPR this morning, and they had an interim-director of the CDC on, and she didn't answer a single question directly. The odd thing was, she seemed to be trying to spin every answer into a more alarmist direction. Things that make you go "hmmmm"....