Thoughts on H1N1 virus

The news media has been calling this flu outbreak "swine flu", but now they are trying to get everyone to call it "H1N1". This virus has elements of swine flu, bird flu, and human flu, so it is inaccurate to call it "swine flu" because it makes people think you can get it from pork.

With that said, at this point it doesn't matter where the virus originally came from, what matters is that it is a new mutation of a virus AND is passable from human-to-human. None of us have immunities to it because it is brand new.

The media and government are making this sound serious, and then that confuses people because they look around and think "only 150+ deaths, whats the big deal?".

Here's the big deal: Pandemics come in waves. In 1918-1919, the spring wave was mild, it was the pandemic wave that came in the fall that was deadly. The virus mutates and can become much more virulent. So if this flu epidemic doesn't go away in some miraculous manner, I am much more worried about what will happen in six months than I am right now. (Please go back and read my posts of March 17-March 22, 2009, where I reviewed the book "The Great Influenza" by John M. Barry. It is truly amazing and scary to see how deadly that second wave in 1919 was.)

I've been reading The Totally Ready Blog for months now. The author Carolyn Nicolaysen does a great job of going through the preparedness you need for any disaster. She has been writing about pandemic preparedness for years. She has been urging everyone to get a 2 months supply so that if you have to self-quarantine you would have what you need. Think of all the foods, liquids, medicines, kleenex, cleaning supplies, etc that your family members would need if they had the flu: jello, juices, diarrhea medicine, pain relievers, etc. (If you want to find out more, read her blog. You can click on the "Pandemic" category in the righthand column to see all the posts on that topic. She has been writing about it since July 2008.)

There have been no cases of H1N1 in North Carolina yet, but I get to worry every day about Bryce, on his mission in Oaxaca, Mexico. Here is what he wrote in his last email, April 27, 2009:

"First off, don't worry, I'm not dying from the swine flu. I am wearing an incredibly uncomfortable surgical face mask thing, and I'm trying to take precautions (washing my hands a lot, not letting people cough on me, etc.) but don't worry, I'm really not worried at all, the Lord's got my back. It's crazy, I just started hearing about it on like Friday, and by today it's giant world-wide news, and last night we got a call from the assistants to the President ordering us to use facemasks and use preventitive measures. Just as long as they don't tell us to stop visiting people I'm fine, because we have way too much going on right now."

So he has faith the Lord's "got his back", so I will try not to worry too much.