rogerwpbfl (imported) wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2020 7:17 am
How much is hype about coronavirus? Heard news reports today there are now 78,000 cases globally and 1770+ deaths worldwide. Also heard that China reported 60% of the worldwide population could become infected, and the disease's 1% mortality rate would make the final death count enormous.
How much of this is usual hype and how much is it time to take this threat serious? You older guys know these things better than the news, I hate the way they try to blow things up to scare hell out of everyone.
Rog,
First, Hello! Where the hell you been?
But, really, I'm still waiting to die from Swine Flu. I know it's gonna get us all because the President ordered emergency vaccination of the entire nation for the Swine flu.
Here is an Article from:
https://www.wired.com/2008/03/dayintech-0324/
--- Included Text of the Article At the Request of the Moderators. Note: The article is subject to Copyright ---
1976: President Gerald Ford orders a nationwide vaccination program to prevent a swine-flu epidemic.
Ford was acting on the advice of medical experts, who believed they were dealing with a virus potentially as deadly as the one that caused the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic.
The virus surfaced in February at Fort Dix, New Jersey, where 19-year-old Pvt. David Lewis told his drill instructor that he felt tired and weak, although not sick enough to skip a training hike. Lewis was dead with 24 hours.
The autopsy revealed that Lewis had been killed by "swine flu," an influenza virus originating in pigs. By then several other soldiers had been hospitalized with symptoms. Government doctors became alarmed when they discovered that at least 500 soldiers on the base were infected without becoming ill.
It recalled 1918, when infected soldiers returning from the trenches of World War I triggered a contagion that spread quickly around the world, killing at least 20 million people. Fearing another plague, the nation's health officials urged Ford to authorize a mass inoculation program aimed at reaching every man, woman and child. He did, to the tune of $135 million ($500 million in today's money).
Mass vaccinations started in October, but within weeks reports started coming in of people developing Guillain-Barré syndrome, a paralyzing nerve disease, right after taking the shot. Within two months, 500 people were affected, and more than 30 died. Amid a rising uproar and growing public reluctance to risk the shot, federal officials abruptly canceled the program Dec. 16.
In the end, 40 million Americans were inoculated, and there was no epidemic. A later, more technically advanced examination of the virus revealed that it was nowhere near as deadly as the 1918 influenza virus. The only recorded fatality from swine flu itself was the unfortunate Pvt. Lewis.
History's verdict of the program is mixed. Critics assail Ford, accusing him of grandstanding during an election year – it did him no good, because he lost anyway – while kowtowing to the pharmaceutical companies. Supporters laud the ability of the nation's health bureaucracy to mobilize so effectively.
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So, yeah, there's that.