Comment by axod | Hacker News Reader

Comment by axod | Hacker News Reader

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They said this at the start of the summer in the UK. There was talk of keeping kids from starting school in september because that's when everything would be at its worst. They setup round the clock manned telephone hotlines for advice. Those operators are now sleeping, playing cards, waiting for the phones to ring.

Seems like most people in the UK have had a mild case of swine flu now, and it was pretty boring (I believe myself and my family had mild case of swine flu a month or so ago - we stayed at home, felt a bit rubbish for a few days, then got better).

Is it really worth getting jabs for this? (Unless you're pregnant or have other medical issues). Is it really worth trying to isolate it?

On the grand scale of things, the number of people likely to die from it seems miniscule compared to other threats.

PS (When I started to type "myself" above, my fingers actually typed "mysql"! Hate it when that happens :/ )

"In the grand scale of things, the number of people likely to die from it seems miniscule compared to other threats."

What are other threats are you thinking of?

What other diseases are estimated to cause half the US population to be infected, one million hospitalizations, and 90,000 deaths? Even if most people who get it are fine after a few days, it's a pretty big deal if half the population is going to come down with it; H1N1 sure is going to get a lot of chances to kill even if it's not so deadly for any one individual.

Your standard seasonal flu kills thousands every year :/

Exactly, 30k dead in the US annually due to seasonal flu. I doubt the swine flue will kill 90k. They want to scare people to sell Tamiflu and the vaccine. It's a billions of dollars business.

The same people who own the pharma companies were involved in the propaganda of WMDs in Iraq, most notably Donald Rumsfeld who is the owner of the Tamiflu selling company.

There's an average of 30k to 50k deaths related to flu each year. And, yes, vaccines are truly beneficial. There's also 30-50k deaths each year because of car accidents.

I'm not saying that people should panic about the flu, but good handwashing, getting vaccinated and not exposing others to your germs is just good common sense, and it's what our best current science says.

If you get the vaccine you might still get sick, but if you do, it's usually less severe. And, we all get the benefit of herd immunity from large scale vaccinations programs.

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