Babe Flu Shot

I got mine yesterday. I went to the doctor so he could check on my cold/sinus condition and the continual flow of phlegm. He said that my lungs were clear. That my sinuses were inflamed and producing mucus which inflamed the area even more which well you get the picture. I got a nasal spray and a prescription for some cough medicine.

I asked if they had Babe Flu shots and I was told yes. And I got one. So far no side effects.

It’s interesting how the coverage and concern about Babe Flu has essentially disappeared. There is almost no coverage about it any more in the media. After the first wave in the fall coverage pretty much disappeared. The main reason is that it turned into a non-event. If people had started dropping like flies, then there would have been wall to wall coverage. But other more important things have come up like Tiger Woods.

I have noticed that there are ads on TV saying the best way to protect against the flu is to get the shot. Walgreens has been running ads saying it is giving out the shot as well. To me the thing that is missing is an announcement from the CDC that people should get the vaccine and that everyone can now get it. I’m not in one of the high risks groups and I was able to get the shot with ease. That point needs to be made and stated out right. Both of the ads on TV talk about getting the vaccine but don’t specifically state that anyone can get the shot.

An article from the Post today states:

Get ready for a huge flu-shot push as health officials try to rekindle interest in protection against this new influenza strain that, despite plummeting cases, still is threatening lives - even as they reassess just how much more vaccine needs to be shipped.

I guess this makes sense for a big push after the holidays. Any attempt to push the vaccine would have been lost in all the hubbub of the holidays.

It will be interesting to see what type of media the government uses to push for the vaccination and exactly how they word the message.

Remember Babe Flu

There was an interesting article in the Washington Post today on Babe Flu.

It said:

With the second wave of H1N1 infections having crested in the United States, leading epidemiologists are predicting that the pandemic could end up ranking as the mildest since modern medicine began documenting influenza outbreaks.

The article went on to talk about the possibility of between 6,000 to 45,000 deaths. This seems to be a huge range. They clarified a little by saying in all likelihood the death toll would be between 10-15,000. That number is less than half the number of people that die from the regular flu. The big caveat to this whole thing is the number of children and young adults that have died from Babe Flu. It's much higher then in the case of the regular flu.

It will be interesting to see if scientists are ever to figure out exactly why older people seem not to get it as much and when they do have less severe symptoms. I would think figuring that out would help when the next one comes along.

The concern of course is as Babe Flu recedes into the back ground fewer and fewer people will be getting the vaccine.

To encourage Americans to continue to get vaccinated, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced a new multimedia advertising campaign Monday aimed at countering complacency. After a slow start, more than 80 million doses of vaccine are now available, she said.

"We have to seize this opportunity as disease is going down slightly to remind folks how important this is," she said.

The question here can anyone now get the vaccine or only people that fall into the risks groups eligible for it. The longer every day people are unable to gain access to the vaccine; the more people are not going to bother with getting it at all.

The Vaccine Roll Out Starts

The roll out of the Babe Flu vaccine has started. Mostly in the form of nasal mist which I have to say sounds pretty gross. Here’s what’s coming into the Washington area:

The initial availability of the vaccine will be strictly limited. The District has ordered 36,000 doses; Maryland has ordered 35,400 doses; and Virginia has ordered 43,500 doses, according to health officials. The first order will also test the distribution system for the vaccine.

It’s interesting that the vaccine: will be shipped directly via FedEx or UPS to health-care providers on the list to receive it. Seems a strange way to be getting a vaccine but then again it’s probably the fastest and most dependable way to get it health care providers. I’d be interested to know where it’s being sent from.

Here’s how the roll out of the vaccine will proceed:

States began ordering vaccine last week, and about 7 million doses are expected to be available by the end of this week. About 40 million doses of nasal spray and injectable vaccine will be available by the middle of the month, with another 10 million to 20 million to become available every week after that.

So let’s do a little math here. There are 300 million people in the country lets say 250 million end up getting the vaccine. It said 40 million could be vaccinated by the middle of the month. That leaves 210 million left. Let’s take the high end of the estimate of available doses coming along each week and that’s 20 million each week. Will drop our count to 200 million just so the math is easier. It means it will take 10 more weeks to get everyone vaccinated. That takes us to the beginning of next year. But if only 10 million doses are available each week that’s 20 weeks and that takes us into March of 2010. Actually it’s probably more time than that when you factor in the fact that kids are going to need two doses of the vaccine.

This assumes people are going to be seeking out the vaccine. I think a great deal depends on what happens. If people stop dropping like flies or a bunch of kids get sick and die, I assume people will be storming the gates trying to get the vaccine. But if things stay as they are with mild symptoms and people being sick for a short time, they’ll be plenty of vaccine to go around.

Here are a couple of things I’m wondering about. How do you determine when people who are not in the high risks groups start getting the vaccine? Is this done on a state by state basis? If one state vaccinates everyone on the high risk group does that state get to start giving the vaccine out to anyone? For example say Montana vaccinates all the people considered high risk does it then get to vaccinate people not on the list if say New York state hasn’t finished vaccinating everyone considered at high risk. You assume that it might be easier for Montana to finish before New York because of the differences in population. Who decides that.

Another thing I thought interesting is the CDC is just now starting an advertising campaign. Why wasn’t this done earlier? Why aren’t government officials showing up all over the TV? Why aren’t we seeing ads right now.

Then there’s this quote:

“There’s a lot of misinformation out there,” said Gregory Poland, a flu vaccine expert at the Mayo Clinic. “Then you mix into that people’s concerns about conspiracy theories and government misbehavior and conflicts of interest and all of that, and the average layperson has a difficult time discerning what to do.”

Well if there’s a great deal of false information out there why aren’t the health care people putting out the correct information. Seems to me the health care community is a little flat footed on this.

But if we get lucky and most cases are mild, we won’t have to worry about this. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

Babe Flu Vaccine Arrives

So the Babe Flu vaccine is about to arrive:

Vaccine for the H1N1 flu will begin arriving in the nation’s hospitals, clinics and schools as early as Tuesday, the start of an effort to protect Americans against a swine flu virus that emerged this past spring and quickly circled the globe.

This from a story in USA Today.

The article goes on to say:

In a task worthy of a deadly serious video game, state health departments have to organize thousands of workers at 90,000 sites nationwide to administer as many as 250 million doses in three to four months, making sure the people at greatest risk from swine flu — such as pregnant women, young children and health care workers — are first in line.

But there’s been very little information on where people should go to get the vaccines.

There is this story in the Post today about how public schools will be vaccinating school kids in the coming weeks. But the details are a bit sketchy to say the least. Now maybe things have not been finalized which I can understand. However, it that’s the case then what the public should be told now is where to go and get information on the hows, whens and wheres of the roll out of the vaccinations. But you sure haven’t seen much of that at all.

It is good to be able to the DC health site and see that there’s only been one case of Babe Flu reported. But there is this one caveat to this statement and that is: * As of September 1, the Department of Health only tests for H1N1 in hospitalized flu cases. Counts are the number of confirmed cases since September 1, 2009. It seems to me that’s a better way to count the number of cases. These numbers represent the people who are badly sick as opposed to people who just had a mild case.

More on the numbers USA Today has an interesting map of the US. The map from the CDC divides the country up into regions and give the number of Babe Flu cases per million people. It also has a time line. You can click on a date starting in August until mid-September (the dates are a week apart). You can see how the numbers have increased over time. The problem is the number don’t mean all that much. There’s no context to the number. How does this compare with the normal flu? Are the numbers going up faster than normal flu. Are certain regions getting more cases than normal. I don’t understand why there isn’t more of this so people can get an accurate picture on how serious the Babe Flu is.

Earlier in the year all sorts of number were bandied about about the number of people with Babe Flu. The problem with that is once you’ve had Babe Flu you were part of that total number. If gives no context as to the number of people who’ve died or even the number of people who were still sick.

It will be interesting to see how the vaccine distribution progresses. How well things go probably depends on how severe Babe Flu becomes.

Babe Flu Returns

Not that it was ever gone but it dropped off the radar as a news story. Once it was clear people wouldn’t be dropping like flies the interest by the media in the story went completely away. Now that kids are heading back to school it has come back into the news.

Also there’ve been all sorts of meetings and pronouncements on the flu by the medical community. 100 million people could be get sick from Babe Flu. Up to 90,000 people could die. Hospitals are likely to be overwhelmed by people seeking treatment. 20 to 30 percent of the work force could be at home either sick or taking care of a sick child.

The news media ate it up. Dire predictions of disaster. Except the problem is no one really knows how bad the outbreak will be.

I had a dinner with a friend on Friday and we wondered why more information wasn’t being put out to the public. If Babe Flu is supposed to overwhelm hospitals wouldn’t it make sense to launch a campaign to have people get the regular flu shot. If there’s a bad regular flu season, hospitals can be overwhelmed, so it seems prudent to take steps to make sure that doesn’t happen. That means making sure as many people as possible get the regular flu shot.

The regular flu shot is available now. So there should be a big push for people to get the shot now. That would include offering free flu shots as soon as possible. The free flu shot offers seem to start in late September or October. They should be starting now. The more people that you can prevent from getting the regular flu, the more help this will be if Babe Flu takes off.

Also there should be public service announcements about how to prevent the spread of flu. I remember Bill Cosby doing public service announcements about what to do in case of a fire. These should be made now about the flu. They should then start running on TV. And they should be seen during prime time not a 6 am when the Cosby commercials seem to show up.

Another question that’s been raised is the ability of the medical infrastructure being able to handle giving out two shots for Babe Flu. Because two shot are needed are there enough trained professionals to give them out. Is there going to be a need for volunteers to help give out shots? If that’s the case then shouldn’t the push to find these volunteers be now so they can be trained and ready when the Babe vaccine is finally available. I don’t understand why they’re waiting on this one.

I guess the bottom line for me on Babe Flu is this. The government needs to be doing a great deal more to inform people about what to do and what will happen.

In a quick update I learned this afternoon that Elmo will be helping the government spread the word on Babe Flu.

Here are the PSAs

I was in a Confined Space

Oh my goodness I was in a confined space today. Not just once but several times. OH NO!!!

As our Vice President said earlier in the week:

"I wouldn't go anywhere in confined places now," Biden said when Matt Lauer asked whether he would advise family members to use public transportation.

"I would tell members of my family, and I have, I wouldn't go anywhere in confined places now. It's not that it's going to Mexico, it's you're in a confined aircraft when one person sneezes it goes all the way through the aircraft. That's me. I would not be, at this point, if they had another way of transportation suggesting they ride the subway. "

And I've been on the subway not once but twice today. Then I went to my gym which is in a confined space. Further I went to a spinning class which is in and even more confined space. Oh no. Oh NO.

Oh no is right.

I'm beginning to get the feeling that the Swine Babe Flu reaction is getting just a little out of hand. The VP's remarks certainly didn't help matters. Closing of school districts when a few kids in a few individual schools might have been exposed to Babe Flu is a little over the top too. I think an important point was raised about this. Where do all these kids go if they are not in school? Is it possible they are just as likely to be exposed to the flu as if they stayed in school?

Then there's the coverage of the death of the toddler in Texas. This was breaking news on CNN when I was at the gym around 8 in the morning. It was till breaking news when I got home from work nine hours later. Somehow that not still breaking news.

Then there was the general coverage of this whole very tragic event. The first death in the United States. Well yes and no. It was the first death of someone who died from the flu from the U.S. But it was not the first death of someone from the US from the flu. This is a huge difference.

This flu can be scary enough as it is. The comments and reporting on it need to be done very carefully. So far there've been a couple of stumbles along the way. Hopefully they will be last.

Renaming the Flu

This seems rather silly in a way but I guess it makes some amount of sense. There is an ongoing attempt to rename the Swine Flu the H1N1 Flu Outbreak. Or h1N1 for short.

Producers of pork are concerned about the use of Swine Flu:

Groups representing the pork industry _ including the National Pork Producers Council, the National Pork Board and the American Meat Institute _ have all been in talks with the Agriculture Department asking officials to discourage the name "swine flu" and to reassure the public that pork is safe.

Read more about it here.

I can't see the media changing to saying the H1N1 flu virus.

A friend came up with a great idea. Call it the Babe Flu. The Babe Flu you say. Yes the Babe Flu. If you know your movies then you know that Babe was a movie about a pig. Thus the new name Babe Flu. Certainly a lot easier to remember and much catchier than the H1N1.

Swine Flu

Well I knew I would get around to this issue sooner or later.

The first thing when CNN talked about will be hearing from WHO soon. I thought is this an Abbott and Costello skit or something out of Dr. Seuss.

But it is no longer a laughing matter with all the deaths in Mexico. Follow the coverage here at the Post.

From that article today a representative from WHO said:

Keiji Fukuda, the WHO’s assistant director general for health security and environment.

“At this time, containment is not a feasible option,” Fukuda said. “This virus has already spread quite far.”

“With the virus being widespread,” he said, “closing borders or restricting travel really has very little effect in stopping the movement of this virus.”

I’m sorry but I don’t get saying that at all.

How did infected people get to Scotland and Spain and Israel and New Zealand.

Did they walk there? No.

Did they drive there? No.

Did they take the train there? No.

But they did take a plane.

Everyone single one of the cases outside of Mexico so far have been related to people traveling in and out of Mexico City by plane. Why not stop all flights in and out of Mexico City?

Would it completely stop the virus from spreading? No.

But it seems to me this would reduced the ability of the disease to spread to other countries especially where there are no cases currently.