Korean Job Discussion Forums

[chris_J2]

Spelling Note

flu, flue, or flew? Do not confuse the spelling of flu, flue, and flew, which sound similar. The nouns flu and flue are probably the most likely to be confused: Flu is an illness, whereas a flue is a smoke or heat outlet or a type of organ pipe. Flew is the past tense of the verb fly: Time flew past.

http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_1861612396/flu.html

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Deleted.

[chris_J2]

OP, I was having a dig at the Huffington Post:

"Illegal aliens are bringing in a deadly new flue strain. Make no mistake about it," blares Michael Savage.

Journalists get paid NOT to make mistakes. The irony of the 'make no mistake', immediately after the typo, wasn't lost on me.

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Mexican economy set to shutdown as flu spreads

Mexico's president told citizens to stay home from tomorrow for a five-day partial shutdown of the economy, after the World Health Organisation raised its alert level and said a swine flu pandemic was imminent.

In his first televised address since the crisis erupted last week, president Felipe Calderon told Mexicans to stay home with their families. The country will suspend non-essential work and services, including some government ministries, from May 1st to May 5th.

"There is no safer place than your own home to avoid being infected with the flu virus," Mr Calderon said.

Mexico reported another 17 deaths potentially linked to swine flu, bringing the total to as many as 176.

Ten countries have reported cases of the H1N1 strain, and Texas officials said a 22-month-old boy had died while on a family visit from Mexico, the first confirmed swine flu death outside Mexico.

Switzerland became the latest nation to confirm a case of swine flu after a man tested positive in the town of Baden, near Zurich.

"Influenza pandemics must be taken seriously precisely because of their capacity to spread rapidly to every country in the world," WHO director general Margaret Chan told a news conference in Geneva yesterday as she raised the official alert level to phase 5, the last step before a pandemic.

"The biggest question is this: how severe will the pandemic be, especially now at the start," Chan said. But she added that the world "is better prepared for an influenza pandemic than at any time in history."

In Mexico City, a metropolis of 20 million, all schools, restaurants, nightclubs and public events have been shut down to try to stop the disease from spreading, bringing normal life to a virtual standstill.

Nearly a week after the H1N1 swine flu virus first emerged in California and Texas and was found to have caused dozens of deaths in Mexico, Spain reported the first case in Europe of swine flu in a person who had not been to Mexico, illustrating the danger of person-to-person transmission.

Both US and European officials have said they expect to see swine flu deaths.

President Barack Obama said during an evening news conference at the White House yesterday there was no need for panic and rejected the possibility of closing the border with Mexico.

"At this point, (health officials) have not recommended a border closing," he said. "From their perspective, it would be akin to closing the barn door after the horses are out, because we already have cases here in the United States."

Mr Obama also praised his predecessor for stockpiling anti-viral medication in anticipation of such an outbreak.

"I think the Bush administration did a good job of creating the infrastructure so that we can respond," Mr Obama said. "For example, we've got 50 million courses of anti-viral drugs in the event that they're needed."

Almost all cases outside Mexico have had mild symptoms, and only a handful have required hospitalization.

Masato Tashiro, head of the influenza virus research centre at Japan's National Institute of Infectious Disease and a member of the WHO emergency committee, told Japan's Nikkei newspaper it appeared the H1N1 strain was far less dangerous than avian flu.

"The virus is relatively weak and about the same as regular influenza viruses passed on via human-to-human contact. I don't believe it will become virulent," he was quoted as saying.

"The threat to health from the avian influenza and its fatality rate is much greater than the new flu," he said.

"I am very worried that we will use up the stockpile of anti-flu medicine and be unarmed before we need to fight against the avian influenza. The greatest threat to mankind remains the H5N1 avian influenza."

Mr Chan urged companies who make the drugs to ramp up production. Two antiviral drugs -- Relenza, made by GlaxoSmithKline and Tamiflu, made by Rocheand Gilead Sciences -- have been shown to work against the H1N1 strain.

Mexico's central bank warned the outbreak could deepen the nation's recession, hurting an economy that already shrank by as much as 8 per cent from the previous year in the first quarter.

France said it would seek a European Union ban on flights to Mexico. The EU, the United States and Canada have advised against non-essential travel to Mexico, and many tourists were hurrying to leave, crowding airports.

Reuters

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[Julius]

S.Korea quarantines foreigners
Thu Apr 30, 2009 5:59am EDT Email | Print | Share|

SOUTH KOREA took the fight against Swine fever to a new level yesterday, announcing plans to quarantine all foreigners resident in, and entering the country.

http://www.reuter.com/

[Gimpokid]

[bacasper]

[mises]

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Imhgcz8jn10/SfnN1aeyqYI/AAAAAAAAAJg/xluQBad_4kI/s1600-h/image.jpg

[superacidjax]

[superacidjax]

The Rumsfeld "connection" is really pretty flimsy. The wife of Democrat former Calif. governor Pete Wilson was also on the board of the Tamiflu-makers.

Let's look at EVERYONE that owns stock in that company. Tamiflu is one of the only anti-virals effective against the flu, who wouldn't want to own that stock? The "normal" flu is one of the world's most serious diseases, causing serious illness in 3-5 million people worldwide per year and 500,000 deaths. Tamiflu stock is a smart thing to own. It has been since Tamiflu hit the market.

If we want to look at something nefarious from Rumsfeld, why not look at Al Gore's conflicts of interest. He goes around the world scarring people about human-caused global warming (since renamed "climate change" due to the inconvenient truth of declining world temperatures the past couple of years,) yet Al Gore is on the board of directors for a significant climate-change venture capital group. Could Gore be creating hysteria to enrich his pockets? Could Rumsfeld?

I don't think that either one of them is behind the scenes "causing" these issues. Although, I think Gore is the more disingenuous, simply because Rumsfeld was in close cooperation with the Pentagon's general counsel in an attempt to avoid conflicts of interest of insider trading. Gore on the other hand has shown no such restraint in his business interests.

If this was a human-caused event, I doubt the US would be behind it. After all, if Mexico goes down the tubes, who is forced to pick up the slack?

[Ya-ta Boy]

[superacidjax]

[canuckistan]

[bacasper]