Swine flu and WHO

A story in   NowPublic  reports that:

At least 226 swine flu cases have been reported in the United States and the World Health Organization is set to raise the alert level to 6 and declare a pandemic. WHO officials say not to panic and a level 6 pandemic level is not 'the end of the world'. 

The warning is there to keep countries from becoming overconfident and make sure they don't allow H1N1 the opportunity to mix with other viruses. 

WHO issued its 14th update regarding the influenza AH1N1 at level 5 pandemic alert. 

4 May 2009 -- As of 18:00 GMT, 4 May 2009, 21 countries have officially reported 1085 cases of influenza A (H1N1) infection.

Mexico has reported 590 laboratory confirmed human cases of infection, including 25 deaths. 

The United States has reported 286 laboratory confirmed human cases, including one death.

The following countries have reported laboratory confirmed cases with no deaths - 

Austria (1), Canada (101), China, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (1), Costa Rica (1), Colombia (1), Denmark (1), El Salvador (2), France (4), Germany (8), Ireland (1), Israel (4), Italy (2), Netherlands (1), New Zealand (6), Portugal (1), Republic of Korea (1), Spain (54), Switzerland (1) and the United Kingdom (18).

Source: who.int.

In said story someone made a comment with this point below;

If it mutates at all in a more lethal direction, and if that mortality rate is only 2%, which is actually lower than the mortality rate in Mexico now just a thought or 2 " If " (a small yet powerful word), yes it could gain stature, but it very well may mutate to a lesser threat, fizzle out correct ? I hope it does fall flat on it's viral face. Most of us know it's a fairly natural progression for us, humans to catch bugs and most of us survive, we build antibodies and a small amount of us sadly do not, and truly how tragic to die from such a thing, a "thing" most of us beat. Perhaps you'll think this callus, and it's true when all emotion is aside, we become that, but for the sake of theorizing, If, a given 2 to 4 million of humanity die on this planet it won't place us into an extinction mode. Most of us don't think of ourselves as Animals, nonetheless lo and behold we are just that, a lovely Animal, albeit humankind have taken almost total and complete dominion over all other Animals, we are still part of them. We of with the incredible thinking, feeling, creative and reasoning wonderful beautiful brains... (we presume to know what animals think or that they don't reason, this boggles my mind that Man, science or religion thinks it can know ) Maybe these viruses are the earth's way of dealing with one of her "animals "over crowding.. Generally the "all age groups" means people of child bearing age 20-40, which in essence prevents that group from procreating, and that moves right down their potential progeny down decades on & on.. As it happened in the Pandemic of 1918. It was healthy, strapping individuals which died,the young survivors given a decade or so before contributing to the populace imagine if those people did not die and did procreate there would likely be more overcrowding today, weird to think of eh? * Survival of the fittest may be relative to the survival of the Earth, a natural selection for Gaias needs, "survival of the fittest." does not mean nor should it be confused with physically fit, biggest, fastest or strongest... the Earth needs to survive, we maybe to Earth what nonpathogenic bacteria are are to us Humans, Now that's a thought to ponder upon. Furthermore, many of us believe in a thing called " the belief system" much like the digestive system, nervous, respiratory some of us more then others know how powerful believing can be... it can help to create our very reality. We run belief tapes in our subconscious minds constantly thus tis so important what those thoughts are, we believe in a myriad of things, religion being one of them and one of the most damaging tapes to many, guilt, sinner, bad, good, going to hell eCt..eCt... Therefore why not believe it's going to work out... If we catch the darn Swine or a flu by any other name - That all it is is a little bug with a big name - flu & as usual most of us get through it, we going to get better our bodies and minds need to take dominion over this tiny organism, heck we taken over most everything else, I'm not saying our dominion over animals is right, in my opinion it's come to a vile extreme in so many cases.. a different story for another time, perhaps. I think and feel that fear is a burden to that very powerful belief system.... edited 05/06/09 @ 1:17 First American to die from Influenza

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Influenza, commonly referred to as the flu, is an infectious disease caused by RNA viruses of the family Orthomyxoviridae (the influenza viruses), that affects birds and mammals. The name influenza comes from the Italian influenza, meaning "influence" (Latin: influentia). Influence yes indeed. *Herbert Spencer coined the phrase, "survival of the fittest."

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A look at  the  populace of this fair planet called Earth;

 ~ CIA - The World Factbook

World Population: 6,790,062,216 (July 2009 est.) Age structure: 0-14 years: 27.2% (male 950,127,898/female 894,359,186)  15-64 years: 65.2% (male 2,235,114,476/female 2,192,071,874)  65 years and over: 7.6% (male 227,748,114/female 290,640,668) (2009 est.) Median age: total: 28.4 years  male: 27.7 years  female: 29 years (2009 est.) Population growth rate: 1.167% (2009 est.) Birth rate: 19.95 births/1,000 population (2009 est.) Death rate: 8.2 deaths/1,000 population (2009 est.) Urbanization: urban population: 48.6% of total population (2005)  rate of urbanization: 1.98% annual rate of change (2005-2010)  ten largest urban agglomerations: Tokyo (Japan) - 35,676,000;  New York-Newark (US) - 19,040,000; Ciudad de Mexico (Mexico) - 19,028,000; Mumbai (India) - 18,978,000; Sao Paulo (Brazil) - 18,845,000; Delhi (India) - 15,926,000; Shanghai (China) - 14,987,000; Kolkata (India) - 14,787,000; Dhaka (Bangladesh) - 13,458,000; Buenos Aires (Argentina) - 12,795,000 (2007) Sex ratio:  at birth: 1.07 male(s)/female  under 15 years: 1.06 male (s)/female  15-64 years: 1.02 male(s)/female  65 years and over: 0.78 male(s)/female  total population: 1.01 male(s)/female (2009 est.) Infant mortality rate: total: 40.85 deaths/1,000 live births  male: 43.85 deaths/1,000 live births  female: 37.67 deaths/1,000 live births (2009 est.) Life expectancy at birth: total population: 66.57 years  male: 64.52 years  female: 68.76 years (2009 est.) Total fertility rate: 2.58 children born/woman (2009 est.) HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate: NA 0.8% (2007 est.) HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/AIDS: 33 million (2007 est.) HIV/AIDS - deaths: 2 million (2007 est.)

• Religions:
• Christians 33.32% (of which Roman Catholics 16.99%,
• Protestants 5.78%,
• Orthodox 3.53%, 
• Anglicans 1.25%),
• Muslims 21.01%,  (hmm)
• Hindus 13.26%, 
• Buddhists 5.84%, 
• Sikhs 0.35%, 
• Jews 0.23%, 
• Baha'is 0.12%,
• other religions 11.78%, 
• non-religious 11.77%
• atheists 2.32% (2007 est.) { oops they missed me we don't even deserve a cap { Haaa

• Languages:
• Mandarin Chinese 13.22%,
• Spanish 4.88%, 
• English 4.68%, 
• Arabic 3.12%, 
• Hindi 2.74%, 
• Portuguese 2.69%, 
• Bengali 2.59%, 
• Russian 2.2%, 
• Japanese 1.85%, 
• Standard German 1.44%,
• French 1.2% (2005 est.) 

note: percents are for "first language" speakers only

• Literacy:
• definition: age 15 and over can read and write 
• total population: 82% 
• male: 87%
• female: 77% 

note: over two-thirds of the world's 785 million illiterate adults are found in only eight countries (Bangladesh, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Pakistan); of all the illiterate adults in the world, two-thirds are women; extremely low literacy rates are concentrated in three regions, the Arab states, South and West Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa, where around one-third of the men and half of all women are illiterate (2005 est.) Government World Administrative divisions: 265 nations, dependent areas, and other entities...

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©M'sheArt2

And in the WALL STREET JOURNAL's  Opinion Journal.  (more fear in case there isn't enough of it in the economic strata )

Pandemics and Depressions History shows the swine flu could take an economic toll. The Great Influenza Epidemic (aka the Spanish Flu) began in spring 1918, went through three or four waves, and lasted into 1920. The spread of the disease was propelled by international travel, much of which involved troop movements in 1918 because of World War I. Estimates of world-wide flu deaths cover a wide range but are typically around 50 million. We have, thus far, compiled estimates of excess deaths from the flu in 1918-20 for 32 of our 36 countries. The median excess mortality rate was 0.7 per 1,000 people, with a range from 0.1 for Argentina to 4.4 for India and South Africa. (The mean rate was 1.1 per 1,000.) Spain, forever associated with the flu, had a mortality rate of 1.2 per thousand, well above the median. The United States, at 0.65, was close to the median (there were 675,000 American deaths). When applied to today's U.S. population, this rate would translate into two million fatalities. As many commentators have observed, the 1918-20 flu was unusual in that a large fraction of the deaths were in persons of prime working age, especially 20-40. This suggests that the epidemic would have had more serious economic implications than just the large number of flu cases and deaths. The troughs in macroeconomic activity that we associate with the Great Influenza Epidemic were typically in 1920 or 1921. Not all of our 36 countries showed economic declines in this period. But on average the fall in real per capita GDP from the previous peak in 1918 (or sometimes 1919 or 1920) was 6.6%. (For the 24 countries with data, the average decrease in real consumer spending per person was similar to that for real per capita GDP.) Notable declines in GDP among the 13 depression cases were Canada and South Africa at 24% and Italy at 22%. For the U.S. from 1918 to 1921, the falls in per capita GDP and consumer spending by 12% and 14%, respectively, meant that this contraction was second in size since 1870 only to the Great Depression. On this, Cinco De Mio ..... i rather be  on the moon ~ yes no gravity may feel nice !

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