Oh great.

[gwynhefar]

A private school in Lafayette, Louisiana, 60 miles west of me, has closed down temporarily after 5 students, including one who recently returned from a vacation in Mexico, came down with severe flu symptoms. They're keeping the school closed until tests can be run to determine if it's regular flu or swine flu. Of course, it's *probably* just regular flu, but you never know. And of course the local media is whipping folks into a panic.

Comments

[kaitouace2750.livejournal.com]

Read about that in the paper this morning. Front page news, right? It'll be interesting to say the least to see what happens in the next few days.

[harkalark.livejournal.com]

BEWARE OF THE EVIL OINK-CHOO

[maida-mac.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we've got three likely cases here, with one of them an 11 year-old in the school district. We'll have to see what happens, though I haven't seen any serious fearmongering yet.

I'm just a little nervous about the whole immunosuppressed thing.

[gwynraven.livejournal.com]

I'm sure! Be careful and take care of yourself.

[silme.livejournal.com]

I learned today at work that apparently absentee rates were up 20% this Monday in Britain due to people worried they had swine flu. *sigh* And these generally are people who weren't just visiting Mexico.

[gwynraven.livejournal.com]

Yeah - at least in this case they do have a connection to Mexico, and I'm not really surprised they closed the school until they can determine if it's swine flu or not. And I'd be a little worried if it was swine flu, being so close.

That said, there are a lot of people blowing it all out of proportion as well.

[silme.livejournal.com]

I just keep thinking back to 1976. :)

And I keep thinking of how many people die yearly from influenza. I'm not knocking how serious the current situation is, particularly in Mexico, but boy...

[gwynraven.livejournal.com]

Yeah - I think the reason there's so much panic about this one isn't that it's particularly virulent, but that its a hybrid and it keeps mutating so we have no natural defense to it. Also, the majority of people who die from regular influenza are the 'at-risk' folks - the elderly, young children, people with compromised immune systems, etc. This one seems to be striking and killing otherwise healthy adults.

Hence the fear.

[silme.livejournal.com]

Apparently a school here in the UK closed yesterday after a child who goes there was diagnosed with swine flu.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8026548.stm