Swine flu information pack

Written By: - Date published: 9:40 am, June 17th, 2009 - 19 comments
Categories: swine flu - Tags:

It’s appalling that if you go to the Ministry of Health or Beehive websites there is nothing easy to find about how we as individuals should be reacting to the swine flu pandemic (plenty of info on the Jobs[sic] Summit though).

All the experts say exponential spread is now inevitable. The government should be making sure that people know now, before it’s everywhere, how to minimise the chances of contracting and spreading it. I can’t see why they haven’t sent each household a short flyer on swine flu – a small cost with huge pay-off. The news media are just as bad, very little practical information.

The Standard into the breach again. Some quick facts (note, I’m no medical expert – these are things the experts have said and I’m repeating), then more detailed information from the US Centers for Disease Control.

– swine flu does not seem to be more deadly or severe than ordinary flus. The problem is that no-one (except, maybe, some older people, see below) has any immunity to it because it’s new. That means a large portion of the population will contract it. Apparently about 30% of infections are ‘non-clinical’ – the symptoms are so weak you wouldn’t be diagnosed as having it – but for some people (particularly the young and those with underlying medical conditions) swine flu, like any flu, can be very serious.

– so the added risk from swine flu compared to the seasonal flu isn’t necessarily to the individual, it’s to society as a whole. If a lot of people get sick at the same time vital services will be under-staffed, businesses will not be able to operate (knocking more off our economic output, it’s potentially as bad as another recession on top of the one we’ve got), and a weakened health system will struggle to provide full services to everyone who needs it.

– the idea then, is for as few people to get swine flu as possible and for those infections to be spread out over as long a term as possible to reduce the strain on our vital social and economic systems.

– remember that it takes days after contracting the flu to show symptoms and you are infectious for several days before and after being symptomatic. Which means that just staying away from sick people is insufficient to protect you completely.

– the best things to avoid contracting swine flu, apart from staying away from people who are showing symptons are to practice good hygiene – especially cleaning your hands before putting them to your eyes, nose, and mouth, keep yourself warm, and eat well.

– if you think you are infected, don’t be a hero/dick, stay home; don’t make everyone else sick. Yes, I know what you do is dreadfully important and you can’t possibly take time off but you’re doing no-one any favours by being an agent of the pandemic.

Fuller information from the CDC on the next page (note, they refer to swine flu as Novel H1N1):

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19 comments on “Swine flu information pack ”

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  1. craig 1
    17 June 2009 at 9:55 am

    Great to see The Standard spreading the word for the big pharmaceutical companies…

    • Merlin 1.1
      17 June 2009 at 10:19 am

      Yeah, the UN, CDC, our Ministry of Health etc, they’re all in the pocket of Big Pharma. What a wingnut.

      I expect you think that Melbourne is faking it too.

      The post doesn’t even mention using pharaceuticals. So not the best ad for them, eh, you tool?

      • craig 1.1.1
        17 June 2009 at 10:24 am

        Not in the headlines of the NY Times or the Guardian but all over our shitty little papers, yeah it’s a big world emergency.

        And look at flu medicine sales skyrocket.

        • Merlin 1.1.1.1
          17 June 2009 at 10:35 am

          Oh it’s not on the frontpages of NYT and the Guardian today. Must to a fake then.

          I’ll just ignore what every health authority is saying and base my health decisions on what headlines two newspapers (from countries where it is not yet highly spread) decide to put on their front-pages. Because I’m a goddam idiot.

          • craig 1.1.1.1.1
            17 June 2009 at 10:38 am

            Oh hey look, it’s on http://newzealand.govt.nz/. Get the latest info here. But no, let’s attack National.

            Why isn’t John Key wearing a t-shirt telling people about swine flu, in case somebody who didn’t have access to the internet saw him or something???

            It’s appalling. Let’s bring back corporal punishment so we can hang him.

          • craig 1.1.1.1.2
            17 June 2009 at 10:40 am

            And yes I’m sure there’s far more people with Swine flu in New Zealand than in the US. Because I mean NZ is just over the water from Mexico.

          • Merlin 1.1.1.1.3
            17 June 2009 at 11:24 am

            “And yes I’m sure there’s far more people with Swine flu in New Zealand than in the US. Because I mean NZ is just over the water from Mexico.”

            Per head of poulation there are twice as many in NZ as the US. The US has 4638 in over 300 million people, we have over 100 in 4 million http://www.theage.com.au/national/rising-number-of-nations-report-swine-flu-cases-20090616-cgl5.html .

            We’ve got 0.3% of the cases in the world in 0.06% of the world’s population. Plus the US has the information page from the CDC that the post quotes. munter.

          • Marty G 1.1.1.1.4
            17 June 2009 at 11:31 am

            Since I wrote this post last night the MoH’s website has improved. Initially there was nothing when you went to moh.govt.nz, now there’s a link to the flu page. At first the flu page had no easy to find practical info, now it has that at the front where it should be. Well done MoH!

          • Merlin 1.1.1.1.5
            17 June 2009 at 11:35 am

            Ah, now we see why craig is in such a tizzy. It’s not that he’s a conspiracy freak. It’s that he can’t handle any criticism of Key.

            Yes, they should be doing something to get the key messages to those who don’t have the internet or the skills to find a page hidden in the Ministry of Health website.

            Oh and you’ve confused corporal and capital punishment

  2. Bill 2
    17 June 2009 at 9:59 am

    “if you think you are infected, don’t be a hero/dick, stay home; don’t make everyone else sick”

    Completely agree with the sentiment you express. However, putting aside the Coldoral soldier on ads or whatever that b/s med is called giving out a contrary message, the sad fact is that many workers simply cannot take time off.

    Worked for less than six months? No sick leave.

    Got kids who need to be looked after from time to time and then you come down with flu? Six days a year. Yes, I know it accumulates, but if you have kids then your sick days are probably exhausted every year.

    So. Are the bosses going to pay for this one? Same way as they have copped it for the economic downturn I guess.

    I can picture it now. Sick as a dog. Unpaid leave. Bills stacking up. Still. As long as business profits stay healthy….

  3. notreallyalawyer 3
    17 June 2009 at 10:45 am

    “It’s appalling that if you go to the Ministry of Health or Beehive websites there is nothing easy to find about how we as individuals should be reacting to the swine flu pandemic (plenty of info on the Jobs[sic] Summit though).”

    it too 2 seconds to find this from a direct link on the MoH website –

    http://www.moh.govt.nz/influenza-a-h1n1

    Probably most people can do the same, apart from The Standard people.

    Keep it up guys, turn this serious heath issue into just another one of your partisan political hack attacks.

  4. jarbury 4
    17 June 2009 at 10:58 am

    I think this is a very useful and informative post.

  5. cathyu 5
    17 June 2009 at 11:41 am

    What is interesting is how the Australian response is so different from ours. Their media are extremely on to it, and it has been debated publicly that the real issue about Swine flu is the danger of it mutating into a much more serious form. Our media says nothing about this danger! The Spanish flu in 1918 was intially mild, like this one – then it came back and killed a lot of young people.

    At Auckland International Airport I was given a pathetic leaflet, hand amended, which made it clear if you got swine flu in NZ you’d be paying for the Tamiflu yourself 🙂 Presumably the NZ govt is too poor to pay for either non NZ citizens who get the swine flu OR even to reprint some leaflets 🙂 Wonderful image this presents to the first time visitor.

  6. Sparo 6
    17 June 2009 at 11:54 am

    not thread-jacking, but how about a blogger pointing up this child discipline Referendum thing.. the ads are fine..

    my beef is with the pros and cons from folks I thought were polical advocates…

  7. Noko 7
    17 June 2009 at 2:19 pm

    Sitting here at school with a notice in my bag right now.

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