O.T.: CNN advertising "a different sort of Y2k bug"

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

CNN is heavily advertising a newsbyte that will appear at 8 P.M.EST on the main evening news program. It appears to be a story about the epidemic that is filling hospitals and Dr.'s offices. They say it is not the flu. (So what IS it?)

Anybody been following the story concerning S. Calif. hospitals turning people away due to lack of capacity/staff?

Anybody got a copy of The Stand I can borrow? JK

-- Greg Lawrence (hammerforge@hotmail.com), January 05, 2000

Answers

I have a feeling you have just reactivated the chemtrail talk. ;-)

-- Ned Raggett (ned@kuci.org), January 05, 2000.

Don't get CNN; will this story be available as a transcript? Am very interested!

-- Wilferd (WilferdW@aol.com), January 05, 2000.

There is indeed a near epidemic of an illness similar to a very severe flu in S. California. I haven't seen any news stories on this for a couple of days...

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), January 05, 2000.

Here is the best link on the internet about chemtrails...

http://www.carnicom.com/contrails.htm

-- Ziggy (Contrail@aol.com), January 05, 2000.


My wife is a nurse at the local trauma center here in Central California. They are absolutely filled to capacity. I don't know if it's related or not.

Pretty sure it's the chemtrails........uh, yeaaaaaaaaa, that's gotta be it!

-- Butt nuggett (Floater@toilet.com), January 05, 2000.



Chemtrails/Contrails/Strange Sightings Threads

-- up in the sky (look@you'll.see.eventually), January 05, 2000.

Philadelphia hospitals are filled, too. Turning folks away. They say it is the flu.

-- No shopping for awhile (eatin' my supplies@home.net), January 05, 2000.

Thats it! I'm outa here....

-- JoseMiami (caris@prodigy.net), January 05, 2000.

Hi everyone, I hope you don't mind a newcomer contributing to this forum... I'm going to look into this Chemtrail stuff (thanks for posting the sites), but I do recall that a couple (maybe more) years ago here in California we had a flu epidemic which also filled hospitals to capacity. Just FYI. Thanks,

-- Newbie (newcomer@this.site), January 05, 2000.

The transcript should be posted tomorrow.

http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/wt.html

-- Kay (kay@iinc.com), January 05, 2000.



I have to look it up to be sure but if I'm remembering from my training correctly ANTHRAX begins top show up as "flu like symptoms" 3 to 5 days after exposure.

Once you show "flu like symptoms" its to late the drugs will not help then.

Whats todays date?

Did anything really big happen a couple days ago where alot of people could've been exposed to such a thing?

-- Swampthing (in@the.swamp), January 05, 2000.


The flu bug in my area started going around the week after Christmas. Most of the people who had it are better now, and now the people they passed it on to (because they came to work sick) have it. I know of one case of someone having a fever of 105, but she's doing much better now.

-- Newbie (newcomer@this.site), January 05, 2000.

The Providence Journal reports that every hospital bed in Rhode Island is full due to the flu.

-- Ron Newman (rnewman@thecia.net), January 05, 2000.

This is a first response from a long time lurker with a background in Microbiology. There was an item on the local LA news (ABC, NBC or CBS)somewhere around the beginning of last week about the flu epidemic. They said that the number of cases from the influenza virus were about the same as normal, and that there was another virus that was causing "flu-like" symptoms in the rest of the peole who were sick. This mystery virus was not identified. Only an influenza virus, by definition, can give a person influenza. According to a number of stricken people, including my mother, the flu shots are not working.

BTW the current epidemic does not jive with an Anthrax scenario.

-- Upchuck (buggy@socal.com), January 05, 2000.


Ziggy,

Great link, THANKS! I fired off those letters and feel good having taken the advantage of the opportunity to do so. Inadvertently sent one to Alabama's governor before I saw the state pull-down menu, heh.

Dr. Dean Ardell said on his afternoon radio broadcast today that we now have jumped from NO tests for influenza, to THREE that will confirm influenza. Would love to see a MICROBIOLOGIST (hint) or independent lab check and see if anthrax et. al. don't give you a false positive for influenza on these new so-called tests.... Wouldn't that just suck.

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), January 05, 2000.



Thanks UpChuck. A voice of reason, thank you God. Look folks, THIS IS contribuiting to fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Nobody, not .gov, not any government anywhere, wants to toy with BIO weapons. They all have their experts and they all know the possibilities. If someone were to unleash such a weapon on New Years, it would traver so far, so fast that NO nations population would be safe. Terrorists may be a strange breed BUT they usually are not a STUPID breed.

Calm yourselves and just watch the situation. Flu's and even new strains of flu or rhinovirus (colds) are common EVERY year at this time. When you see the men in the suits. Post more some concrete information, until then, such speculation will make you as paranoid as I am. That is not good.

-- Michael Erskine (Osiris@urbanna.net), January 05, 2000.


Hokie, You are very welcome. :)

-- Ziggy (Contrail@aol.com), January 05, 2000.

Influenza type "Sydney A" is what they're calling this one. They say it is a known strain, very tough to get rid of. Also the lovely upper respitory infection that everyone is comign down with. In Arizona the hospitals are full (per The Arizona Republic 12/28/99). In New JErsey the hospitals are full (per my doctor).

-- kritter (kritter@adelphia.net), January 05, 2000.

A nursing home in our area, a small area had thirty five cases of the flu. The wife and I went out to eat lunch at one of our many favorite resturanes today. The tables were not attended as they usually were, the food bar was real skimpy. We stopped one of the waiters, that was rushing madly about and asked what was the matter. She said, you see the whole side here with all these tables, I have to tend them becasue every body is calling in sick. We hardly have enough help the run things here. I asked her were they calling in with the flu, she said yes, seems like every body has it.

-- Notforlong (Fsur439@aol.com), January 05, 2000.

http://www.foxnews.com/xml/sprint/sprint.htm?content=/health/010500/fl u.sml

Flu Flares Up Across America: How to Cope

5.09 p.m. ET (2109 GMT) January 5, 2000, By Marian Jones

If you're sick, you already know influenza has hit America hard, flooding hospital emergency rooms, clearing out offices and ruining the holidays for thousands.

* In Rhode Island, every emergency room hospital bed is full due to the flu, the Providence Journal newspaper reported Wednesday.

* In Alabama, some hospitals have reported a three- to four-fold jump in the number of flu-related illnesses since mid-December.

* In St. Louis, Mo., there were 141 cases of influenza reported last month, compared to just one case at the same time last year, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

* In New York, one hospital said it had a 30 to 35 percent jump in hospital emergency room admissions, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

"This is just a miserable 'hanging on'-type bug," wrote Arden, an Orlando, Fla., woman, in an e-mail to Fox News. "It came on last Thursday, so New Year's Eve was a lot of fun toasting with our Robitussin!"

"I missed the millennium," added Maria Theodorakos of New York. "I spent all of New Year's Day at St. Francis Hospital on Long Island with a 104-degree fever."

The Symptoms

How do you know you've got the bug, and not just a case of the winter sniffles?

"The hallmark of influenza is rapid onset with cough and fever," said Dr. Robert Belshe, division director of Infectious Diseases at St. Louis University School of Medicine. "Other symptoms include muscle aches, malaise, headache and sometimes people get [lower] chest pain," Belshe said.

While the common cold usually starts with upper respiratory symptoms such as a stuffy nose, runny nose and sore throat, these symptoms are not part of early-stage influenza, Belshe said.

How Not to Get It

The flu is very infectious, but people can take measures to avoid it.

"Number one, people should have already had their flu shot," said Belshe. "But if you haven't had a flu shot, it's not too late."

The flu shot protects against influenza A and B and takes about two weeks to stimulate the antibodies to flu. Anybody over six months old can get the shot, which protects against 70 percent of flu infections.

It is especially recommended for older people, in whom the flu can be deadly, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Another way to avoid the flu is to avoid people with the flu and to wash your hands frequently, said Dr. Richard O'Brien, a spokesperson for the American College of Emergency Physicians.

You can get the flu virus by "having someone cough on your body or face, or touching somebody that has secretions on their hands," O'Brien explained. "Secretions on countertops and doorknobs also last a couple of hours."

Some hospitals are recommending that people not visit friends or relatives who are hospitalized with flu. Another cautionary measure, O'Brien says, is to avoid places where there are large closed-in crowds.

How to Get Better

There are a several medications doctors can prescribe to treat the flu, but these drugs all must be administered within 48 hours of onset. "The sooner [drugs] are started, the more effective they are," said Belshe. "The virus replicates rapidly."

These medications include two older drugs: amantadine, which tends to cause lightheadedness and dizziness, and rimantadine, which can be taken to reduce amantadine's side effects.

While these drugs work only against influenza A, two new "neuraminidase inhibitor drugs," Relenza (Zanamivir) and Tamiflu (oseltamivir phosphate), work against both influenza A and B. Relenza is inhaled; Tamiflu can be taken in pill form.

"They will shorten the course of illness by a couple days and reduce fever," said Belshe. "Patients will feel better quickly once the drugs start to work."

In addition to medication, people with flu should get plenty of rest and plenty of fluids, and take analgesic medications such as Tylenol and Advil to reduce fever, Belshe added. "Common advice is good advice," he said.

If symptoms are serious enough, a person should go to a hospital emergency department, urged O'Brien, who works as an Emergency Physician in Scranton, Pa., doctors recommend.

"Even if emergency departments are full," O'Brien added, "we will stack [patients] up in the hallways" to treat them.

-- PS it is not the flu (sore@throat.fever.runningnose), January 05, 2000.


http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/metropolitan/421045

-- charlie houston (cml@workmail.com), January 05, 2000.

Moderation questions? read the FAQ