When Swine Flu

May 04, 2009 09:00

"Better safe than sorry ( Read more... )

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Comments 8

senorbrightside May 4 2009, 15:25:33 UTC
40 cases in Spain...40/40 million people. What percentage is that? Just curious.

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blindapprentice May 4 2009, 17:38:58 UTC
0.0001%

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senorbrightside May 4 2009, 17:41:56 UTC
It's up to 54.

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mizzoumark May 5 2009, 04:39:09 UTC
Oh dear. You better run for the hills.

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tko_ak May 4 2009, 19:34:07 UTC
The school officials should be fired for incompetent and sewing discontent. It's a gross overreaction and I hope voters don't forget it. If I were a student, I might like it, but I'd be pissed about having to make it up before summer could start.

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mizzoumark May 5 2009, 06:53:04 UTC
I think the Texas Education Agency is giving schools that are closed a waver, so they don't have to make up the missed days. Of course, when schools do reopen, that means that teachers will have to rejigger their lesson plans to get in all the necessary stuff they have to teach before the finals. Frankly, as nice as the week off is right now for the students, it's going to suck having to learn new material up to a day or two before exams, instead of the customary week or so of review.

Parental reaction here still seems to be running in favor of closing schools (indeed, one commenter on the Dallas Morning News site said she wanted her kid's district to go ahead and shut down for a couple of weeks, even though there are no cases in the district, the town, or for that matter, within 25 miles). So, I suspect their job is safe. However, if the virus comes back in the fall, I expect they'll be a lot less closings, at least until it becomes clear that closing would be a very wise idea.

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bdouville May 5 2009, 02:20:11 UTC
"We had the luxury of going 33 years in the US between flu pandemic fears."

We didn't have that luxury in Toronto. SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) gave us quite the scare in early 2003. And as I recall, its effects were much, much more severe than the Swine Flu -- at least in Toronto.

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mizzoumark May 5 2009, 19:28:16 UTC
I had forgotten SARS hit Toronto. I remember there was a lot of worry it would make its way into the US, but it didn't, so the overreactions we are seeing now didn't happen, and most people (including me) mostly forgot about it.

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