What's all the pandemic about?
April 27, 2009 5:23 PM Subscribe
Swine flu has given rise to a whole lot more speculation about a coming pandemic than SARS did. Why?
Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's how local it is to us.
posted by brundlefly at 5:26 PM on April 27, 2009
posted by brundlefly at 5:26 PM on April 27, 2009
Coming from Toronto. trust me - SARS was considered to be a huge, huge threat.
posted by mannequito at 5:31 PM on April 27, 2009
posted by mannequito at 5:31 PM on April 27, 2009
Response by poster: No citation. This is my (Canadian) perception. But I certainly don't recall hearing the "P" word quite so much during SARS.
posted by kitcat at 5:31 PM on April 27, 2009
posted by kitcat at 5:31 PM on April 27, 2009
Social media. When SARS was freaking people out, we weren't reminded about it 100 times a day via facebook/twitter updates from people you haven't seen since high school. Yeah, we had Myspace and personal blogs, but neither of those were nearly as mainstream as Facebook is (and as Twitter is becoming). All the updates I've seen have been joking about it or "OMG DON'T EAT PORK WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!" It's enough to make me want to turn off the internet.
yes i made a lame joke about it on twitter over the weekend, sue me
posted by AlisonM at 5:38 PM on April 27, 2009
yes i made a lame joke about it on twitter over the weekend, sue me
posted by AlisonM at 5:38 PM on April 27, 2009
Best answer: I don't remember what words were in fashion at the time, but I do remember a lot of people wearing those surgical masks.
Anyways, check the wiki for SARS:
"The severity of the symptoms and the infection of hospital staff alarmed global health authorities fearful of another emergent pneumonia epidemic. On 12 March 2003, the WHO issued a global alert, followed by a health alert by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Local transmission of SARS took place in Toronto, Ottawa, San Francisco, Ulan Bator, Manila, Singapore, Taiwan, Hanoi and Hong Kong whereas within mainland China it spread to Guangdong, Jilin, Hebei, Hubei, Shaanxi, Jiangsu, Shanxi, Tianjin and Inner Mongolia."
posted by mannequito at 5:40 PM on April 27, 2009
Anyways, check the wiki for SARS:
"The severity of the symptoms and the infection of hospital staff alarmed global health authorities fearful of another emergent pneumonia epidemic. On 12 March 2003, the WHO issued a global alert, followed by a health alert by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Local transmission of SARS took place in Toronto, Ottawa, San Francisco, Ulan Bator, Manila, Singapore, Taiwan, Hanoi and Hong Kong whereas within mainland China it spread to Guangdong, Jilin, Hebei, Hubei, Shaanxi, Jiangsu, Shanxi, Tianjin and Inner Mongolia."
posted by mannequito at 5:40 PM on April 27, 2009
The Swine Flu hasn't had its own South Park episode yet. Until then, it's small-time.
posted by rokusan at 5:41 PM on April 27, 2009 [1 favorite]
posted by rokusan at 5:41 PM on April 27, 2009 [1 favorite]
I think RustyBrooks is on the right track. Swine Flu is active in the U.S. and Mexico, and not a country a couple of thousand miles away. A lot of people visit Mexico regularly, not to mention the fear of immigrants that already exists. It's not much a stretch for people to be scared that immigrants will be carrying disease. There's also the feeling is that it's already here, as opposed to the West Nile Virus, Avian Flu, or SARS which never seemed to take hold in North America.
And honestly, it was sort of a slow news weekend. The torture memos were last week and all that's been since is this and Bea Arthur.
posted by JuiceBoxHero at 5:42 PM on April 27, 2009
And honestly, it was sort of a slow news weekend. The torture memos were last week and all that's been since is this and Bea Arthur.
posted by JuiceBoxHero at 5:42 PM on April 27, 2009
Swine Flu is active in the U.S. and Mexico, and not a country a couple of thousand miles away.
SARS was regarded as a very serious problem in Canada, where the OP is from.
posted by KokuRyu at 6:09 PM on April 27, 2009
SARS was regarded as a very serious problem in Canada, where the OP is from.
posted by KokuRyu at 6:09 PM on April 27, 2009
I thought the avian flu got quite a bit of media exposure, especially considering the few (none?) human-to-human transmissions.
posted by justkevin at 6:19 PM on April 27, 2009
posted by justkevin at 6:19 PM on April 27, 2009
Response by poster: Right, SARS did get a lot of media exposure. But I'm specifically asking about the "pandemic" issue. Was there something about SARS that made it less worthy of pandemic with a capital 'P' fears? Is it (as justkevin just brought up) a matter of fewer (none?) human-to-human transmissions with SARS?
posted by kitcat at 6:27 PM on April 27, 2009
posted by kitcat at 6:27 PM on April 27, 2009
Also, nobody knows much about it yet (how well it spreads, fatality rate, etc.) So speculation has filled the vacuum. I seem to remember there being a lot of crazy speculation about SARS as well, but that was while it was in the 'over there on the other side of the planet' phase.
posted by blenderfish at 6:35 PM on April 27, 2009
posted by blenderfish at 6:35 PM on April 27, 2009
Response by poster: *blush* I think I'm also confusing SARS with Avian flu...
posted by kitcat at 6:36 PM on April 27, 2009
posted by kitcat at 6:36 PM on April 27, 2009
I think you're misremembering this. If you Google "SARS pandemic" you get hundreds of thousands of results, many like this one.
posted by Sidhedevil at 6:42 PM on April 27, 2009
posted by Sidhedevil at 6:42 PM on April 27, 2009
Best answer: Just as a point of reference, Google Books searches for before Jan 2009 for sars AND pandemic gets 761 hits and for "sars pandemic" gets 140.
You can't exclude recent stuff that way in a general Google search so a search of the entire web including postings since the swine flu gets 413,000 hits for sars AND pandemic and 5630 hits for "sars pandemic".
So in print and on the web, since then at least, SARS was referred to as a pandemic and to my recollection that word was used at the time as well and there was quite a bit of freaking out going on, especially that because China had suppressed things the problem might already have been far worse than was being reported.
Another aspect of it is, note that the WHO alert mannequito's quote mentions is from eight days before the U.S. invaded Iraq. Perhaps you're internally comparing the freaking out going on right now to the sum totality of the freaking out going on then over both SARS and the war.
posted by XMLicious at 6:50 PM on April 27, 2009
You can't exclude recent stuff that way in a general Google search so a search of the entire web including postings since the swine flu gets 413,000 hits for sars AND pandemic and 5630 hits for "sars pandemic".
So in print and on the web, since then at least, SARS was referred to as a pandemic and to my recollection that word was used at the time as well and there was quite a bit of freaking out going on, especially that because China had suppressed things the problem might already have been far worse than was being reported.
Another aspect of it is, note that the WHO alert mannequito's quote mentions is from eight days before the U.S. invaded Iraq. Perhaps you're internally comparing the freaking out going on right now to the sum totality of the freaking out going on then over both SARS and the war.
posted by XMLicious at 6:50 PM on April 27, 2009
Best answer: One thing that may be different about the Swine flu: Epidemiologists are particularly concerned because the only people killed so far [in Mexico] were normally less-vulnerable young people and adults. This is similar to the 1918 Influenza Pandemic. Most doctors believe that this is because a young person's healthier immune system can mount a cytokine storm that overwhelms the victims lungs (cite).
I am not a medical professional (IANAMP), so I don't know if this is truly a deeper concern or if it just seems scarier.
posted by zinfandel at 7:08 PM on April 27, 2009 [2 favorites]
I am not a medical professional (IANAMP), so I don't know if this is truly a deeper concern or if it just seems scarier.
posted by zinfandel at 7:08 PM on April 27, 2009 [2 favorites]
Maybe it's because I was working on a public health degree at the time, but I remember all sorts of conversations about the potential of a SARS pandemic given that we had (have? did this ever get sorted out?) no concrete idea how the hell it is transmitted.
Once an infectious disease starts leaping continents (as SARS did and as swine flu is currently doing), you pretty much have to have to start talking about the possibility of a pandemic.
pandemic: an epidemic that is geographically widespread; occurring throughout a region or even throughout the world
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 7:15 PM on April 27, 2009
Once an infectious disease starts leaping continents (as SARS did and as swine flu is currently doing), you pretty much have to have to start talking about the possibility of a pandemic.
pandemic: an epidemic that is geographically widespread; occurring throughout a region or even throughout the world
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 7:15 PM on April 27, 2009
I guess I should add that sustained person to person transmission is a big factor in this as well. (Which was the same for the recent avian flu outbreak concern.)
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 7:24 PM on April 27, 2009
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 7:24 PM on April 27, 2009
SARS hasn't been shown to be as easily transmitted as the flu. While some research has suggested that SARS may have airborne transmission, it's nowhere as easy to transmit as the flu. Add to that the constant contact between Mexico and the US, and then you have a worrisome situation.
posted by The Light Fantastic at 10:08 PM on April 27, 2009
posted by The Light Fantastic at 10:08 PM on April 27, 2009
Personally, I think you're misremembering the dread with which SARS was discussed. Certainly it never hit the US, but it did hit Canada and there was plenty of worry at the time because of how deadly it was.
But.
That's exactly why there weren't great fears of a pandemic, literally a global epidemic. The more deadly a virus is, the less time it has to spread to other hosts. Ebola, for example, is so deadly it rarely spreads very far. SARS has one of the highest fatality rates of any transmissable disease known to man.
But a swine flu could easily spread to millions of people in a relatively short time, and kill thousands or even hundreds of thousands of them, and still not be as deadly as SARS by a long shot.
With SARS, the public health community concentrated on "containment" strategies. Keep it from spreading. With swine flu, containment has already been judged ineffective, so "mitigation" strategies are recommended.
posted by dhartung at 10:26 PM on April 27, 2009
But.
That's exactly why there weren't great fears of a pandemic, literally a global epidemic. The more deadly a virus is, the less time it has to spread to other hosts. Ebola, for example, is so deadly it rarely spreads very far. SARS has one of the highest fatality rates of any transmissable disease known to man.
But a swine flu could easily spread to millions of people in a relatively short time, and kill thousands or even hundreds of thousands of them, and still not be as deadly as SARS by a long shot.
With SARS, the public health community concentrated on "containment" strategies. Keep it from spreading. With swine flu, containment has already been judged ineffective, so "mitigation" strategies are recommended.
posted by dhartung at 10:26 PM on April 27, 2009
Another thing to consider is the infectious stage of both flus: swine flu is speculated to be infectious BEFORE the visible onset of flu symptoms, while SARS is most infectious 2 days or so after a high fever. This effectively shortcircuits self-quarantining.
Can't seem to find where I first read this (just this morning!), so take it with a grain of salt.
posted by popsciolist at 12:28 AM on April 28, 2009
Can't seem to find where I first read this (just this morning!), so take it with a grain of salt.
posted by popsciolist at 12:28 AM on April 28, 2009
Haven't run the numbers, but it seems like tho WHO, CDC and state governments are out on front of this moreso than they were during SARS. I think we've just learned from SARS and recognize now that pandemics are serious. I don't think swine flu is going to be particularly serious, but I think it's a good trial run for when something really bad does come along. Other than the media hype (24 hour news networks), I think everyone is reacting reasonably.
posted by betsybetsy at 8:03 AM on April 28, 2009
posted by betsybetsy at 8:03 AM on April 28, 2009
Mod note: comments removed - quit joking, thanks
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 12:16 PM on April 28, 2009
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 12:16 PM on April 28, 2009
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posted by RustyBrooks at 5:23 PM on April 27, 2009