Avian Flue

jframe

SGF, Supreme Grumble Framer
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It should be called the AVian Flew!

Someone mentioned the Avian Flue on another topic. Does anyone have a plan to try to protect yourselves and employees from the AF, or visa versa? Have you heard any recommendations from groups such as the Red Cross?

I heard someone talking about it on the radio. They said it will probably be here within 2 years. There could be major business interruptions and very slow retail business due to people staying at home for protection, sick employees, slow deliveries, low manufacturing production.

Should we have a plan for ourselves or leave it to FEMA?
 
The flu flew up the flue.

We will have hindsight working for us since it seems to be arriving in Europe first. We may have the opportunity to see how other's deal with the problem well in advance.

Then again, the Robins have been hanging around for longer than normal this year on their trip north. They are feasting on the ripe palm berries. I'm not sure if they arrived early or are leaving late.

2 years sound optomistic considering how quickly it spread from SE Asia to Europe and Africa.
 
Jo,

I am implementing a pre-emptive plan as we speak.

I intend to have no contact whatsoever with anything that sports wings or eats seeds or carrion.

Also I am designing a yard net that will be fired over all the large yellow pines that surround my humble abode and will help keep those pesky flu carrying beasties out.

(I have to clear this part of the plan with my landlady but I can't imagine her not being in full favor of the idea!)


Seriously, I can't imagine a plan that would be so all incompassing as to protect an entire nation from a toxin that is carried by birds!! I am not saying that the risk won't be present but how would FEMA or any other agency protect such a population?? Inoculations would do if they can come up with one that works and not use the general public as guinea pigs to test out their theories.

I suppose you could wipe out the entire bird population across the country but then you have really pissed off Mother Nature and you can imagine what she'd do with all the bugs that are left to multiply!! :eek: And then you would have to contend with illegal immigrant birds sneaking over the borders at night. That would surely pose a problem with the Canadians who don't want flu birds in THEIR country either!

(That reminds me of a joke about the foo bird but I'll leave that for another thread.) :cool:

I will be interested to hear the varied solutions for this upcoming problem and how Grumblers will cope with the threat.

Framerguy
 
I read this morning that some cats have died in either Germany or France from having eaten a dead bird carrying the flu virus.

The suggestions from the health officials were to keep your cats indoors and your dogs on a leash.

I have never had a flu shot, but when the vaccine is available, I plan to get one this time around.
 
first things first: According to the CDC--Center for Disease Control--viruses have the ability to mutate so quickly that a vaccine available today may not work two years or two months from now.

Secondly: so far, it's been animal-to-animal contagion, altho I read now mammals are starting to contract the disease. Again, it will continue to mutate and, hopefully, not transmit to human

OK, here'e my plan--and I'm DEAD serious, no pun intended:

1) Stay home. Install new HEPA filtration in the central HVAC and no one leaves except for emergencies--emergencies being foodstore and the like.

2) when we do go outside, wearing masks and gloves. WIll look stupid but who cares?

3) Do all online banking for billpaying

4) convert enough stocks and bonds into money market or other liquidity to last about two years, which is what some "experts" claim it will take to run its course.

I would also anticipate the stockmarkets to go to you-know-where in a handbasket so I think the markets will tank.

5) Keep handgun and shotgun shells on hand and "lock and load" the situation in case home invasions increase.

Yeah, it's scary. But when we emerge we plan to be alive.

Now the real scare: can we stand each other in a house for that long?
 
I have a customer who is a scientist with the San Diego Zoo. They have been tracking this one religiously for obvious reasons. He said HE expects this flu to mutate into a human transmitted version within the next twelve months.

There is no vaccine for this one. Our Government will NOT be prepared for it, at least as far as helping the average person goes.

This will undoubtedly be a thinning of the herd scenario. He said the worst place to live will be in the fly ways, like up in British Columbia. He said the best place on the whole planet will be South America.

He said the only problem with moving to South America is you will probably succumb to some Tropical disease that you have no immunity to.

John
 
I've never been to AA but don't they have a prayer about having the courage to change the things they can....something....to ignore the things they can't and the knowledge to know the difference.

What a depressing thread. I wished I had never opened this one.
 
The other day I received a "Business Pandemic Influenza Planning Checklist" from the Snohomish County Health District.

There were six categories with four to nine items in each category and boxes to check labeled Completed, In Progress, or Not Started. One of the categories was "Communicate and Educate Your Employees" and number two in this section was "Anticipate employee fear and anxiety, rumors and misinformation and plan communications accordingly".

I think this is the stage we are now in.

To quote Charles Mackay: "People go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one."
 
Sounding a little paranoid there Mike......if it is going to be the apocalyptic type scenario you are suggesting I hope I go in the first wave......Jay is right, "Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can, and
the wisdom to know the difference."
Saint Francis of Assisi

Does anybody remember SARS?
 
I wish I was born in Assis. I hope that is a mostly female population. I would love to be Saint Jay of Assis.
 
This is a great website:

Conspiracy Planet

sidenote: I found it interesting that I am more likely to die by a falling meteor than in a car crash.
 
We went to Assisi this past summer-I found it just so-so (insert smiley face here)

[ 03-08-2006, 02:39 PM: Message edited by: Bob Carter ]
 
So far, the Avian (or Bird) Flu virus has not mutated into a form that can be passed from human to human. The few humans that have caught it have done so from close contact with poultry they were raising, not from eating poultry, which if properly cooked would not give you the virus. Of those people who have contracted it, not all have died.

Until it mutates into a form that can pass from human to human, there is very little chance of getting it unless you live in close contact with poultry the way people in other countries do. They will also have to wait for that to happen to make a vaccine because any they make now from the current form might not be effective against the new form. Also, flu vaccines have a limited shelf life and can only be kept stockpiled for so long before they are no longer usable.

I really don't see this as much of a threat yet to the average person. There are numerous other deadly disease out there that you are far more likely to catch, like West Nile Virus or Lymes Disease. I'm more concerned about the effect on the wild bird population worldwide. Many are already endangered, this could push some species over the brink. :(
 
Gee guys, doncha know satire and irony when you see it? Esp you Kathy. O well, it was expected.

I do volunteer work with the terminally ill at a local hospice so I'm likely to get Hep A B or C before I get avian flu.

Guess I better reread Steven King's Last Stand, huh?
 
Oh thank goodness Mike, you are the "erudite" Grumbler, I couldn't believe what I was reading was coming out of you. Guess I didn't have my irony radar on when I read it. I'm way too distracted by these vomiting graemlins..........

Do any of you remember Y2K?
 
Does anybody remember SARS?
Does anybody remember "Y2K"? My mother (who relishes worrying about things beyond her control) insisted back then that we were all going to be cooking in our fireplaces, etc. I can't believe she hasn't hopped on the H5N1 bandwagon yet. She does, however, mention terorism at least once every time I talk with her.
:eek: Rick

A good gauge of what we're supposed to be fearing is Stephen Colbert's "THREAT-DOWN". His top threat is ususally BEARS.
faintthud.gif
 
had to go before I edited the posst. This was the result of a recent cocktail party with us, an oncologist, an immunologist and accountant among others. It was a "parlor" game of "what happens if" that slowly deteriorated into visions of Armageddon.

Anyway, my post ws a compilation of what we all came up with. And we all discounted the gov from being of any help with immunologies. We also compared it to the Spanish influenza in the early 1900s that wiped out millions and this before airplane and other intercontinental travel so the results this time could be 100 times worse..

So we had all read Steven King, most had read The Stand and thus we all had pictures of total isolation.

Personally, icould use a coupla years of rest and relaxation. But I would join my son in Hawaii if I was gonna do it.
 
Originally posted by Mecianne:
sidenote: I found it interesting that I am more likely to die by a falling meteor than in a car crash.
Where did you see that, Mecianne?

I looked at the website but don't see that particular piece of misinformation...or are you being sarcastic?
 
Regarding Y2K...a friend's husband went for that one whole hog.
He had food stored and bottled water well in advance. He even buried money in the back yard!

He got angry when we wouldn't take him seriously.

I'm not around these folks anymore so don't know what he thinks about the flu pandemic.

Maybe Florida is a warm enough climate to avoid the worst of it but I agree with Jay and Kathy...the serenity prayer seems appropriate for the circumstance.
 
Nope...it was there....try this:

odds of dying by _________


At the bottom right-hand corner of the articles you can click on "More" and it gives you the full article.
 
I argue the analogies. Y2K only affected computers--altho my son's ship at the time had to correct certain navigational discrepancies in the global positioning systems used by international trade---SARS did in fact hit Japan in the form of terrorists.

This, however, is a killer.

And if--and this is a big IF--it strikes, I'm doing my paranoic best to protect my big butt and those of my family--like shelter my kids and wives for a coupla years in our house as my above paranoic post reports.
 
Thanks, now I see it

Did you notice that everything else says "death by...' but the meteor one just says that a meteor will strike earth this year?

Wonder if that was a trick to see if we are paying attention or just an oversight on their part?

You are right it is hard to believe!
 
Originally posted by Mike LeCompte CPF:

1) Stay home. Install new HEPA filtration in the central HVAC and no one leaves except for emergencies--emergencies being foodstore and the like.

Oh, I see, the people running "the food stores and the like" must be either imune to the flue or deeply ignorant to still be going out and work for the rest of us, don't you think so?

Society's chain implosion due to terrified people locked indoors and avoiding contacts would finish us up faster than the flue itself. Modern people cant survive long time in isolation. We are efficient, strictly specialized individuals who are helplessly ill fit to face life at that primary level. Just think about truck drivers not showing up to work for one month, six month or a year. Electrical plants being not serviced, phisicians consulting people over the phone... Got the picture?
 
whynot: yep and that was part of our discussion and why the economy would be in collapse--wht you said plus other economic factors. Isolation factor ws also discussed but I didn't want to get TOO macabre.

As I said it was a "parlor game" which really got depressing so we quit.

Glad you got the pic tho Cornell. Might start you thinking about ultimate survival without having to watch reality TV.
 
So Mike, I should or should not get the new Remington 12 guage pump?

Geeze, now I have to think about the ramifications of raising birds. We have 18 exotics and 2 mated pair sitting on a total of 4 eggs. We are in a major flyway for a number of species.

2 books came to mind while reading this thread. "Alas, Babylon" by Pat Frank (post nuclear, but the societal changes would be similar), and "White Plague" by Frank Herbert (a bit more radical, but airborne like Avian Flu).

Better get out my Boy Scout Field Guide.
 
wally: why a pump? I love a good ol' semiautomatic; how's about a Kalishnikov full auto? I mean what the h..l you don't want to scare the invader, you want to kill him--or her. Dead bodies on the lawn will most assuredly discourage other home invaders from trying to get into the house

One of the party-goers had read Herbert. I enjoy him too

Fool: Arquati goin' out of business? Is that why my rep never came back? Or maybe he got bird flu?
 
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