Re: [Marxism] World Health Organization: "What, me worry?"

["Joaquin Bustelo" <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxx>]

Fred writes: "So, if CNN is not just joshing us along which is entirely
possible, this is a readily controllable and curable strain of flu."

Anti-viral drugs do not (at least not yet) have the effectiveness against
their bugs that antibiotics have against bacteria. Also viruses, especially
evolving new hybrid strains (like this one) can have a spectrum of
substrains. I do not believe there is sufficient experience with this virus
to conclude it is easily controllable and curable. The Mexican experience
suggests that until it can be shown otherwise, the opposite must be assumed.

We do not know the actual morbidity and probably not even mortality figures
for the strain(s) prevalent in Mexico. According to Dr. Sanjay Gupta, who is
fairly responsible in these things, the total "cases" reported in Mexico are
those that led to hospitalization -- a figure not comparable to the 40 or 50
reported US cases or the handful in Europe. Only one of the cases in the
U.S. has required hospitalization, so assuming a similar rate in Mexico,
there may have been on the order of 100,000 cases in Mexico, the
overwhelming majority mild. 

While it is true that rich people and people in imperialist countries are
likely to have much better odds in the case of this illness (or just about
any other), that does not make them invulnerable.

The reason the WHO decision was such a joke is that the stated reason --that
the virus has already spread too much-- is obvious and arrant nonsense.
While it is true there have been a few dozen cases outside Mexico and a
handful of cases outside the western hemisphere, as a "mass" phenomenon, a
real epidemic, this is still very localized to parts of Mexico. The
incubation period of this flu strain is believed to be very short (1-3 days)
thus appropriate public health measures and precautions can be highly
effective in stopping the spread of the epidemic. Even in Mexico City, a
downward trend in new cases, hospitalizations and deaths has been observed
beginning Sunday night, only four days after the first widespread warnings
and measures, and even though the public alarm undoubtedly led to a greater
proportion of cases being reported, suggesting the decline in new cases is
understated by the raw numbers.

The outbreaks outside Mexico have all been small and easily containable thus
far. And, quite possibly, have involved only a less virulent variant of the
virus. To allow many thousands of potential infection carrying vectors to
travel from Mexico to the rest of the world every day was an irresponsible
decision. That is why the WHO did not try to seriously defend it except with
the completely spurious argument that the virus had spread too widely, even
though nowhere outside Mexico is there yet any real epidemic, with the only
cases being those directly traceable to Mexico. 

To allow people to bring back the virus from Mexico time and again is to
tempt fate. Do it often enough, and someone contagious is going to wind up
in a crowded venue where it will get passed to dozens of people, and if even
only three or four of them are in similar circumstances where many more will
be exposed, especially random people with no connection save they happened
to go to church or a concert or a public lecture or sports event or karaoke
night at a bar together, you're going to get a chain reaction of infections 

Joaquin


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