Probably because they wanted to keep it from going to the public and then the world about having such an illness. They'd be under the microscope for letting it happen, no?

It's funny cause our class had to make a poster with a political theme... more than half the class did the swine flu. .___.

And you really shouldn't have the world tell you to wash your hands after you come home and such... should be common practice. But of course there are those who walk right out after going to the washroom. Yuck.

Because they didn't recognize that it was the H1N1 virus. Don't forget that the H1N1 virus is a new virus and it has symptoms pretty similar to regular flu.

It's a virus. o.o So bacteria has nothing to do with it.

And the boy who died was from Mexico, so...

Honestly, 100-something people dying from flu, while a horrible thing, isn't that much...more people die from normal flu outbreaks... D:

At the moment, WHO site states there are 26 deaths (25 from mexico, 1 from US). Not really sure how the media/news got 100 and something (I think I heard/read somewhere that the 100+ was the initial guess.. but they found out later that most of them weren't H1N1's fault? not sure).

I think the reason it seems to be such a "scare" is because:

1. It's a new virus, we have no immunity against it. For seasonal flu, most of us would have had a little immunity to it from previous exposure of a similar strain.
   
2. There are no vaccines for it when there's an outbreak, where as seasonal flu vaccines can be developed annually for it.
   
3. Seasonal flu happens every year while pandemics do not. Influenza viruses can induce point mutations to their antigens to alter the strain and make it "slightly different" so our old antibodies don't bind so effectively (this is called an antigenic drift, if anyone is curious..). Pandemics is usually caused by antigen shifts (the case for this) where the virus exchanged RNA with other different strains (bigger change). Meaning our immune system will have to initiate a whole new response. Boohoo.

The big question: Is it as scary as the media makes it sound, and should we be scared too?

Probably not (especially when it sounds like some media doesn't have the right info.. unless I am misunderstanding something somewhere) BUT I personally don't think it should be underestimated and thought of as "just another flu". It is a new virus after all, it deserves some attention as a greeting! :angel:

Yeah, that's what I thought...news around here still says 100+ though. >.> So I wasn't sure.

It's always good to be cautious about flu, especially new strains, but the media is just causing panic. Like, those face masks? Don't even help that much except to help the person wearing it from spreading it to other people. And people are afraid to leave their houses, schools are closing for a week or more (pushing the last day back even further), and people freak out when anyone coughs or sneezes... :l

Haha, yeah, though I think they close schools down because children spread germs like nothing when they're together. They don't know how to keep themselves (politely) away from those who are sick and wouldn't mind if people sneezed in their faces. Not sure if the schools closed down were primary or high schools though.

But hey, if my uni closed down because of a flu outbreak, I wouldn't mind T_T.

Yeah, face masks... I think I saw bits of that in the HK news on the chinese channel we have here... in a way, I can't blame them for that, especially after SARS... not sure about other countries o-o.

The 100+ deaths number come from suspected flu deaths, meaning that those people died before doctors were aware of swine flu.

Many of those families don't want the bodies exhumed so doctors really have no to test the dead bodies to see if those bodies actually did have swine flu or not.

Some people thinks that using face mask would prevent (or reduce the chance of) you from catching the virus...

But face masks are really used to stop you from spreading germs... it does not protect you, coz you can still catch it all through the eyes...

Unless you wear googles with the face mask LOL!!

^ Glasses aren't good enough? *sigh*

ummm My mom is the only person that I know that is worried. Everyone else just goes "OMFG!!! You have the swine flu!!! Ur gunna die!!" when someone coughs, hehehe

H1N1, It's just another kind of flu. We already got cures for H1N1, so I don't think it is that deadly as the media stated, the overexaggerated on the flu topic. Besides, you won't die from the flu due to the fact we already got cures for it.