Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Swine Flu Update....

The Swine Flu is receiving significant international attention. Now, the World Health
Organization has raised the Pandemic Threat Level to 5 (out of 6!)

Symptoms are similar to regular human flu: fever and chills, a cough, sore throat, aching limbs, headaches, and general malaise. However, there are reports of swine flu also causing diarrhoea and vomiting. Pneumonia and respiratory failure can occur leading to death as also happens in regular human flu, which kills thousands of people every year.

And how are we preparing ourselves to battle this pandemic virus? It appears to many folks that we are spending a great deal of time scaring the pudding out of ourselves, lots of knee jerk reactions, and reports of an ominous nature.

But, this swine flu outbreak should wake us all up to either getting our acts together and begin to plan for the reality of many other pandemic possibilities. Businesses as well as our schools and homes should have a plan. I love this definition given in one of the many swine flu articles I've read: "Cyberchondria is an anxiety disorder related to hypochondria and brought on by reading too many tweets with the #swineflu tag, listening to conspiracy theorists, and viewing online news stories about diseases that scare the sheesh kebab out of you for no good reason." All you good scouts out there, be prepared.

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