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Its gone viral and is now sweeping the nation!
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I'm talking about this year's nasty Aussie Flu - also known as influenza strain H3N2. The local hospitals (South-Central Ontario) are reporting surges in infections. Death rates are surprisingly high -especially for the old and weak. And apparently it won't peak for weeks.

The interesting factoid - this is centennial anniversary of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. That one killed an estimated 50 to 100 million people word wide. The US life expectancy dropped by 12 years during the pandemic. Scary.

Remember - It's important to be comfortable in your own skin... because it turns out society frowns on wearing other people's
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Re: Its gone viral and is now sweeping the nation! [Guffaw] [ In reply to ]
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The thing to keep in mind is the Spanish Flu, so I've read, spread much more than it otherwise would have because of WWI. Even for the time sensible, preventative public health strategies weren't employed to the extent they should have been.

More importantly, with modern medicine you're far more likely to live due to simple supportive care that didn't exist or wasn't widely available early in the 20th century.

IOW, it will take a hell of bug to come along to rival the pandemics of the past in terms of lethality.
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Re: Its gone viral and is now sweeping the nation! [ThisIsIt] [ In reply to ]
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My grandfather got Spanish Flu in 1918 while recovering in a field hospital after getting pitched out of/run over by a troop transport coming off the western front in northern France.
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Re: Its gone viral and is now sweeping the nation! [wimsey] [ In reply to ]
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wimsey wrote:
My grandfather got Spanish Flu in 1918 while recovering in a field hospital after getting pitched out of/run over by a troop transport coming off the western front in northern France.

Did he live and how old are you :)
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Re: Its gone viral and is now sweeping the nation! [ThisIsIt] [ In reply to ]
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ThisIsIt wrote:
wimsey wrote:
My grandfather got Spanish Flu in 1918 while recovering in a field hospital after getting pitched out of/run over by a troop transport coming off the western front in northern France.


Did he live and how old are you :)


He did live, walked with a limp for the rest of his life apparently (died before I was born). Grandfather was born 1893; Dad was born 1930; i was born 1976.
Last edited by: wimsey: Jan 10, 18 6:47
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Re: Its gone viral and is now sweeping the nation! [wimsey] [ In reply to ]
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Six months ago a lady died in my practice who was 105. She could remember guiding the doctor around her house during the Spanish flu by lamplight as she was the only in the house who was not ill at the time.

They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

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Re: Its gone viral and is now sweeping the nation! [len] [ In reply to ]
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Those folks are a repository of history- I just let all of them talk a bit- fascinating things come out, and the elderly deserve that respect.

******************************
If I don't, who will? -Me
It's like being bipolar in opinion is a requirement around here. -TripleThreat
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Re: Its gone viral and is now sweeping the nation! [lunchbox] [ In reply to ]
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lunchbox wrote:
Those folks are a repository of history- I just let all of them talk a bit- fascinating things come out, and the elderly deserve that respect.

Was just about to write something very similar. I had a great aunt who died in the late 1990s at 102, sharp as a tack to the end. She remembered the Wright Bros. first flight, where she was when she learned of the WWI armistice, Hitler invading Poland, hearing Elvis Presley for the first time, crying when she heard JFK had been shot, and on and on. The last conversation I had with her she wanted me to show her how the Internet worked (that was after she proved she still could recite the entire Declaration of Independence from memory). Astonishing when I think about how much she saw during her life.
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Re: Its gone viral and is now sweeping the nation! [ThisIsIt] [ In reply to ]
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ThisIsIt wrote:
The thing to keep in mind is the Spanish Flu, so I've read, spread much more than it otherwise would have because of WWI. Even for the time sensible, preventative public health strategies weren't employed to the extent they should have been.

Yeah, I seem to remember that flu was known to be highly concentrated in several military bases, and they were still deploying guys around well after the time they should have "locked down" those bases.
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Re: Its gone viral and is now sweeping the nation! [Guffaw] [ In reply to ]
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Can I assume that this strain isn't covered by the current vaccine?
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Re: Its gone viral and is now sweeping the nation! [efernand] [ In reply to ]
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efernand wrote:
Can I assume that this strain isn't covered by the current vaccine?

Looks like you are correct. I believe I heard the current vaccine this year is only 10% effective.
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Re: Its gone viral and is now sweeping the nation! [len] [ In reply to ]
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len wrote:
Six months ago a lady died in my practice who was 105. She could remember guiding the doctor around her house during the Spanish flu by lamplight as she was the only in the house who was not ill at the time.

My grandmother passed away on Sunday evening. She was 100. She recalled stories from her mother who was fearful my grandmother would not survive because she was born during the Spanish flu epidemic.

As to the statement regarding the elderly being the keepers of history - so true. My grandmother lived in Kansas City until the last few years (she moved to Fort Worth). When I was in law school in Omaha and when I was stationed at Fort Riley, it was too difficult to get home except for, maybe, Christmas. So, I spent all other holidays and some long weekends with my grandmother in Kansas City. We would talk for hours and hours. Grandma was one of the few women who worked her entire life, only taking very brief periods at home for birth of her two children. What she saw and experienced was absolutely amazing. Her stories regarding WWII were my favorite.

If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR
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Re: Its gone viral and is now sweeping the nation! [JSA] [ In reply to ]
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Wish I was a bit more mature when I was younger to listen more about my grandparents stories.

My grandparents and great grandparents were coal miners in Pennsylvania, my grandfather was a mechanic in the 449th bomber group. My grandmother made PPJ's for a living while he was in school on the GI bill. He came out as an electrical engineer working for a defense company. He was gone for weeks at a time for work, grandmother never knew what he did until he retired and was no longer classified. One picture on their wall answered it all, it was a picture of a missile coming out of the water launched by a submarine.

Come to think about it, grandfather never talked about anything, it was all my grandmother.
Last edited by: AndysStrongAle: Jan 10, 18 8:47
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Re: Its gone viral and is now sweeping the nation! [Guffaw] [ In reply to ]
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The scariest thing about Spanish Flu at the time- aside from the fact that it was lethal- is the fact that the young (military age) adults were especially susceptible.

As a fun immunology factoid, it's thought that an earlier and less deadly version infected people about 20 or 30 years earlier and gave those people slight immunity to the virus in 1918.
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