N1H1 Update – Pandemic
My grandson is six years old. There are several people in his class out with the “flu.” It is very early in the year for the flu and I don’t know what kind of “flu” these kids have. All I know is that we have a nationwide problem on our hands.
Again from DemFromCT on DK:
From the Free Dictionary:
pan·dem·ic (pn-dmk) adj.
- Widespread; general.
- Medicine Epidemic over a wide geographic area and affecting a large proportion of the population: pandemic influenza.
June 11, 2009, Margaret Chan, Director General of the World Health Organization:
On the basis of available evidence, and these expert assessments of the evidence, the scientific criteria for an influenza pandemic have been met.
I have therefore decided to raise the level of influenza pandemic alert from phase 5 to phase 6.
The world is now at the start of the 2009 influenza pandemic.
When we write about flu here, there are still a remarkable number of comments to the tune of “it’s not a pandemic, why are you scaring people?” or “why do you spend so much time on this?”
Well, besides the fact that I’m interested in the topic, it happens that pandemics affect a lot of people in a lot of ways great and small, and any such topic is worth spending time on. But it’s not that folks don’t know about it. There’s just a certain amount of complacency about flu and vaccinations.
In a new survey, Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers found that just 40% of adults are “absolutely certain” they will get the H1N1 vaccine for themselves, and 51% of parents are “absolutely certain” that they will get the vaccine for their children. The survey examined the reasoning among those who said they would not get the vaccine or might not.
But none of that is written in stone.
If there were people in their community who were sick or dying from H1N1, roughly six in ten adults (59%) who say they do not think they’ll get the vaccine would change their mind and get it for themselves. About the same percentage of parents (60%) who say they do not think they’ll get the vaccine for their children would change their minds if H1N1 was causing sickness or death in their community.
“These findings suggest that public health officials need to be prepared for a surge in demand for the H1N1 vaccine if the H1N1 flu becomes more severe,” said Robert J. Blendon, Professor of Health Policy and Political Analysis at HSPH. (more…)