flu ban on gigs

Subject: flu ban on gigs
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Mar 05 - 06:28 PM

The british Govt has announced that if Bird flu breaks out all sporting events and all concerts will be banned. Is this right to target performers? We all know the bug will be spread at work,in the office, in the school, on the train,on the bus, in the supermarket etc. Why do they single out one group of people to make unemployed in such a circumstance. And will they offer compensation to these self-employed workers for your pleasure? Will they hell!
This is not to trivialise the enormity of such an outbreak, but as a sound bite to show they care, banning us from working is pretty pathetic in the big picture.

Subject: RE: flu ban on gigs
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 01 Mar 05 - 07:20 PM

If that's true, then all they are doing is trying a spot of modest damage-limitation in areas that will not compromise, from their point of view, "profitability".

It would make far more sense to prohibit people who may be infectious from going to work anywhere, but few employers have the sense to understand or agree to that. Besides, many bonus schemes depend on not taking time off sick. As a consequence, people who are badly ill but still able to walk will go to work, and infect their colleagues.

Employers seem to be convinced that their staff choose to be ill (or lie about it), and should be punished for that. Until that ridiculous attitude is changed, or discrimination against people who are unlucky enough to become ill is prohibited, we will continue to face this sort of thing.

The whole "bird flu pandemic" issue is probably yet another irrational fear, but there is always the risk that it might not be. Being prepared is wise; knee-jerk, panic reactions are merely stupid.

Subject: RE: flu ban on gigs
From: Pauline L
Date: 01 Mar 05 - 07:45 PM

You're right about people who are sick going to work anyway. Employers encourage it, and many people take pride in going to work even though they are sick.

Subject: RE: flu ban on gigs
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 01 Mar 05 - 08:04 PM

Although perhaps not persuasive, the argument can be made that in most work situations you deal with people you know, and can guess that they may "have a bug." You have some opportunity to invoke "safe separation" and perform "local isolation" even of a sick associate.

The one sick one at the office can only directly infect the people at the office, and they can be identified if necessary. Movement of those identified is fairly predictible - to contact with family and other "coherent" groups in which they participate.

In an "event" you're exposed to multiple strangers - who mostly may "look like that all the time." There's not a lot you can do to protect yourself from inadvertent exposure and possible infection. And in the office you don't sit "cheek-to-cheek" with strangers in the manner seen at many "events." The one sick one at an "event" can infect many unknown and unidentifiable persons who can spread an infection unpredictably to other areas.

Infecting a few, or a few hundred, people whose subsequent contacts can be readily identified for observation, isolation, and/or treatment is not too much of a problem for those trying to control an epidemic.

Infecting even a "small percentage" of even a small crowd of unidentifiable people at "an event," who can carry the infection in unknown directions to unknown subsequent contacts, is an entirely different matter if "isolation and containment" is your principal counter to the infection - as it is with most viral illnesses. Even isolating "everyone who was there" usually isn't possible - because nobody knows who they were or where they went next.

Besides, that's what they did in 1917, and it worked for everyone who lived through it.

John

Subject: RE: flu ban on gigs
From: GUEST,Louise (RN)
Date: 01 Mar 05 - 08:08 PM

I did a quick read-through of the U.S. Centers for Diseae Control website dealing with avian flu. Here:CDC flu webpage
According to this generally reliable source, no sustained human-to-human transmission of avian influenza (bird flu) has been documented yet. If that's true, then banning concerts and sporting events wouldn't make much difference in the spread of this disease - unless there are a lot of birds sitting in with the humans in the audiences. Reminds me of the universal advice for dealing with emergencies:

When in danger or in doubt

run in circles, scream and shout.

Subject: RE: flu ban on gigs
From: Pete_Standing
Date: 02 Mar 05 - 05:04 AM

It's all very well saying that in the office environment you have a better chance of identifying the causes, but the carrier when travelling to and from work could conceivably infect tens if not hundreds of people on buses and trains. Large or corporate offices often have facilities for staff to congregate at lunchtime etc, air conditioning sytems that could spread the infectious agent through a whole building; how about visitors or couriers being infected? A wise employer would insist that for debilitating infections, the infected person should stay at home to recuperate rather than risk many more man-hours being lost through the spread of the infectious agent.

Back on thread, people who knowingly have an infectious disease are being quite selfish going to a concert or venue. Apart from the fact that they are going to pass on the bug, it is both annoying and distracting for the artists and the audience to have someone coughing and sneezing away. However, it would be understandable, albeit regrettable, for restrictions being imposed on gatherings such as concerts in the event of a pontentially lethal epidemic. One would hope that the promoters and artists would get some sort of compensation. Despite the complaints from farmers that they did not get adequate compensation during the UK's BSE outbreak, there were some farmers who "milked" the situation and did very nicely out of it. However, performers don't have the same sort of lobbying potential.

The premise that only about one in four people is likely to be affected and therefore make stocks sufficient for that is fine, as long as your methods of predicting who is likely to be affected is largely accurate. Governments aren't immune from Sod's syndrome and they have a habit of seeking the advice that they want to hear rather than from an impartial source.

Subject: RE: flu ban on gigs
From: greg stephens
Date: 02 Mar 05 - 05:08 AM

maybe they should confine the regulations to gatherings of over a hundred people. That should exempt 99% of folk events.

Subject: RE: flu ban on gigs
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 02 Mar 05 - 05:42 AM

If this pandemic does happen, and it is said to be when rather than if, then it could kill thousands of UK citizens. I'm sorry Greg but it is more than fair to include folk clubs in any ban, as people tend to have their mouths open when singing. Apart from which if/when it arrives, I don't think you'd need more than the fingers of one hand to count your audience members.
People who go to work with streaming colds, and hacking coughs, are not being noble they are being selfish, by showing no consideration for their fellow workers.
Giok

Subject: RE: flu ban on gigs
From: Moses
Date: 02 Mar 05 - 06:21 AM

This is not your average "feel rough for a few days and dose yourself up with Lemsip" type of flu. If it does (as we are told it will) mutate to become highly contagious between humans, it will be a killer of vulnerable people.

Think of it as you would The Plague. Would you want to perform at a gig where the audience could give you the Plague?   I think not.

(Yes, I know the Plague was not transmitted by human-to-human contact - this is just an example)

In this case, I think the Government would be right in taking stong measures in an attempt to reduce public exposure to something extremely nasty.

Subject: RE: flu ban on gigs
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 02 Mar 05 - 07:48 AM

The original statement here includes "if Bird flu breaks out all sporting events and all concerts will be banned." Quite probably the operative word is "IF." This sounds like a typical government "don't worry, we have a plan," and possibly will reassure some of the herd-instinct masses who are concerned. At this point, "the plan" doesn't have to be realistic or even a real one.

As with much political propaganda, the reassurance given to those in a lather about the flu now is countered by those in a panic about restriction of rights?

Thus far, the avian flu that is of concern appears to be easily spread between birds, but transferable to humans only by direct contact, probably requiring ingestion of sera from the infected birds. One instance of transmission from one human to another has been reported by the Chinese. The single reasonably substantiated report of human to human transmission that I've seen was from an infected child to the child's mother. There apparently are other "suspect" infections, but it's not a simple matter to verify even that an individual case is this bird flu or to establish the mode of transmission.

The justifiable concern is that if a sufficient base of human infection occurs, it is almost a certainty that a more easily transmissible - human to human - flu having the same resistance to common antiviral medications will develop, since such mutations of flu and flu-like viral agents is the usual process observed with all similar prior agents.

Existing "human flu" varieties are too numerous, and subject to too many mutations, for us to develop any general purpose flu vaccine. We do have a number of antiviral treatments that are of some help, and most variants that currently are easily transmitted between humans respond to some extent to "standard treatments." An inter-species "crossover" may be expected to produce infections that do not respond to the usual treatments. The observed bird flu infections in humans apparently are resistant to most current antiviral medications.

Some credible historians place the first recorded flu "epidemic" in 41 or 47 BC, although it's difficult to establish exact diagnoses without RNA analysis. There have been at least 300 "epidemics" in Europe prior to about 1530 that, according to some researchers, likely were "flu" and that killed, in some individual cases, 5% or so of a "known local population."

The earliest reliably documented influenza epidemic probably began in Russia in about 1886 or 1887, reached Great Britain in early 1889. From Great Britain, it was first noted in Paris in November 1889, and reached Berlin and Vienna within a month thereafter. It took 6 – 8 weeks for it to reach the US, reached South America in about a month, to India within 4 months, to Australia and New Zealand in 5 months, and was found in remote parts of Africa within a year. Nobody who carried it took a jet.

The "big one" was the world-wide influenza pandemic of 1918-1919. The "attack rate" in affected areas was 40 to 50% ill, with a little less than 2% of those infected dying from the desease. The usual estimate is 22,000,000 dead worldwide.

Many virologists believe that this flu pandemic was a previous crossover avian/bird flu.

Some suggest that the mutations that allowed it to affect humans "infected" it with some characteristics of a prior recent "epidemic" flu , and that some people had a partial acquired immunity, hence the "low death rate" in "civilized countries." The US lost about 500,000 (0.5%), Great Britain about 200,000 (% unknown). Samoa, without prior recent infection, saw 25% of its population die, and quite a few Eskimo villages disappeared completely. India lost about 12,000,000 people, believed to be at least partly because they were in the middle of an "explosive" population jump (by about 85% 1906 – 1961) so that there were many children without prior exposure and acquired partial immunity.

There is no guarantee that a NEW cross-over virus will be susceptible to acquired immunity to previous influenza strains.

If sufficient new infections occur via the existing "bird flu" routes of transmission there is a very high likelihood that a human-to-human transmissibility will develop.

Most of the recent pronouncements about bird flu have come from people who are concerned about the funding of public health resources. In other words – propaganda to generate funding. If the need for additional funding is seen as valid, and if the requirement that governments should support disease control research and policy is appropriate, then this is "good propaganda." Particularly with respect to influenza, we have not done a very good job recently, and some agencies likely have been denied funds they, and perhaps we, should consider essential. I have not seen statements from these sources that are not credible, although I tend not to go where wilder things are said.

The second source of recent comment comes largely from governments and/or individual politicians seeking to assure those of the populace who are affected by the first-layer propaganda that "we're doing something – we have a plan." In other words – "cover my ass" political propaganda. If there really is "a plan" then this is just news, but my guess is it's largely blather – at least for the present.

It's easy enough to promise that "if A, then B" if you don't expect "A" to happen before the next election. It doesn't really matter if "B" is a good response. When "A" happens, or looks inevitable, you'll expect to promise something else "based on the current situation" and go on with your career – if you're a traditional polititian.

Note: Some data from Armies of Pestilence, R.S. Bray, ©1996, R.S. Bray, Barnes & Noble Books, 2000, ISBN 0-7607-1915-2. Additional from Smithsonian, Technology Review, and American Scientist periodicals, via short-term memory.

John

Subject: RE: flu ban on gigs
From: GUEST,neovo
Date: 02 Mar 05 - 08:32 AM

Some diseases are infectious before symptoms appear so simply saying an infected person shouldn't go to work or attend sporting events and other similar gatherings isn't going to address the issue.

Subject: RE: flu ban on gigs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 03 Mar 05 - 04:45 AM

Well put, John. Certainly bad that 22 million people died in the 18/19 pandemic. If we look at that in context it is 2% of 50% of the population. If we apply that to the current 6.5 billion we get 3.5 billion / 100 = 35 million * 2 = 70 million - Pretty high and very sad but still only 1% of the population. Harsh as it sounds, and bear in mind that as an asthmatic I am in the at most risk bracket, it is still a small percentage. I also guess that with the modern anti-viral drugs and better health care we will reduce that figure significantly as well.

Don't get me wrong, I am concerned about it but put alongside war, famine, poverty and other killers I think the governments time would be better spent elsewhere. Perhaps if gatherings of people doing nothing useful was to be stopped a certain corner of Westminster could be the first to volunteer? ;-)

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: flu ban on gigs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 03 Mar 05 - 07:52 AM

Sorry - bad sum day. 2% of 50% of 6.5Bn is of course 65 million.

Perhaps I'm ill?

Oh no...

:D

Subject: RE: flu ban on gigs
From: GUEST,MTed
Date: 03 Mar 05 - 02:34 PM

Funny, is it not, that John in Kansas should be our resident Spanish Flu expert, when, from the Stanford University website about influenza, it develops that the first outbreaks of the "Spanish Influenza" occurred, not in Spain, but in March and April of 1918, at US military bases, particularly in Kansas--


Also food for thought, this website--THE SPANISH INFLUENZA EPIDEMIC OF 1918 WAS CAUSED BY VACCINATIONS which puts forth the idea that the flu was actually an iatrogenic paratyphoid which occurred as a consequence of wide spread multiple vaccinations, initially given to servicemen, and later to the general population--

I don't know that I exactly buy the idea, but the writer, one Dr. Eleanor McBean(who wrote this at the time of the "Swine Flu" scare), points out that public health advocates and vaccine manufacturers have had a pattern of spreading fear in anticipation of influenza outbreaks before a single case has occurred--which is definitely the case with this "bird flu"--

Subject: RE: flu ban on gigs
From: GUEST,MTed
Date: 03 Mar 05 - 02:47 PM

Another cause of the sudden publicity about "bird Flu" may found in this article from the Washington Post:

Health Groups Now Worry About Flu Shot Surplus

Here is an excerpt:

The CDC announced that it would offer more than 3 million vaccine doses, which are still in the federal emergency reserve, back to the manufacturer for marketing and resale to public and private providers. As enticement to providers, any additional orders will be covered by a guaranteed return policy so that no physician will be stuck for a dollar loss with leftover vaccine.

The government also is expanding its Vaccines for Children Program to allow inventories within it to be used for adult patients, irrespective of financial need.

"These are extraordinary measures being taken," CDC Director Julie L. Gerberding said.

The situation in the area mirrors the national dilemma. At least a couple of thousand doses of flu vaccine are on hand in public health departments, and numerous agencies are soliciting residents to get vaccinated. Private clinics that were canceled hastily last fall are being rescheduled. The District and Maryland have completely dropped the guidelines that prioritized who should get a shot based on medical conditions or age; Virginia is maintaining them, but loosely.

Everyone's goal is to move remaining supplies fast, before the influenza season peaks late next month and before unused doses must be thrown out.