Quote:
Originally Posted by NuclearFart
Might be worse? I can tell you getting the flu is worse. As you've already stated, death is a possibility, but there's also other possibilities such as a death watch admission to the ICU on a ventilator for a couple weeks. You think this hysteria is an over reaction? We just admitted a physician to the ICU this weekend - young and healthy a couple days ago before contracting H1N1.
You know what's even scarier, and has yet to make the media? If the trend continues, and the average ICU stay is 1-2 weeks, and we only have ~10-20 ventillators per hospital, we are rapidly going to run out of ventillators. You can figure out the implications.
The other thing people don't know is that it's not really the virus that kills you; it's the body's immune system over-reacting and flooding the lungs with reactive cells and fibrotic tissue. Why is this relevant to you? Because it means having a "competent" or "healthy" immune system is 1) not as protective against H1N1 as against the usual/seasonal flu strain, and 2) could theoretically exacerbate H1N1 complications. Hence why we are seeing a disproportionate amount of young, healthy adults being admitting to hospital and requiring ICU admission.
However miniscule you perceive the risk, if it includes death, a couple days of mild malaise is a small price to pay for some degree of protection.
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I cannot thank you enough for this post. I have been telling people until I'm blue in the face that the reason why the bodies haven't piled up in large numbers yet is because the health system has only been bent and has yet to be broken. At the current clip it will be broken. Imagine all the deaths that will occur in a situation where they run out of respirators! Also what won't get reported is how many people die of non-H1N1 related injuries/illnesses beacuase resources were being used to treat H1N1 victims. Everyone assumes that should they get sick enough from H1N1 top quality health care will be readily available for them. Not so if the whole city is out sick.