From Travel Restrictions to Face Masks, Experts Address Readers’ Questions
By PAM BELLUCK
Published: April 27, 2009
By PAM BELLUCK
Published: April 27, 2009
The New York Times asked readers to submit questions about swine flu. Here is a selection of some of the questions, along with answers based on interviews with experts.
Q. Why is the mortality rate so high in Mexico? Is it due to the nature of the virus, the health care system in Mexico, or something else?
Q. Is it possible that the reason United States cases are milder is that Mexico is on a second wave of infection (similar to the 1918 flu, where the initial round was mild and the second round was the killer), while the United States is only in the first round of the infection?
A. Infectious disease experts so far know too little about this swine flu strain to be able to say why it appears to have more seriously affected people in Mexico than in the United States. “As far as I can tell, there is not a good explanation for it yet,” said Dr. Layne. One of the biggest unknowns is how many people in total have been infected in Mexico.
Q. Is it possible that the reason United States cases are milder is that Mexico is on a second wave of infection (similar to the 1918 flu, where the initial round was mild and the second round was the killer), while the United States is only in the first round of the infection?
A. Infectious disease experts so far know too little about this swine flu strain to be able to say why it appears to have more seriously affected people in Mexico than in the United States. “As far as I can tell, there is not a good explanation for it yet,” said Dr. Layne. One of the biggest unknowns is how many people in total have been infected in Mexico.
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W.H.O. Issues Higher Alert on Swine Flu, With Advice
While confirmed cases of swine flu increased only slightly on Monday, the World Health Organization voted to raise its global pandemic flu alert level, but at the same time it recommended that borders not be closed nor travel bans imposed.
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Investors Buy Up Shares of Flu Drug Makers
By DAVID JOLLY
Published: April 27, 2009
PARIS — Shares of GlaxoSmithKline and Roche, makers of prescription flu treatments, rose Monday amid expectations that the swine flu scare would lift demand for their products.
Published: April 27, 2009
PARIS — Shares of GlaxoSmithKline and Roche, makers of prescription flu treatments, rose Monday amid expectations that the swine flu scare would lift demand for their products.
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Teenagers From Queens in Swine Flu Spotlight
By ANNE BARNARD
Published: April 27, 2009
It was the spring break trip they had dreamed of all year: white-sand beaches, a quarter-mile-long swimming pool, young people from all over the world.
Published: April 27, 2009
It was the spring break trip they had dreamed of all year: white-sand beaches, a quarter-mile-long swimming pool, young people from all over the world.
Esti Lamonaca and her friends spent five months planning a trip to Mexico to celebrate their senior year of high school. They chose the Oasis Cancun, better known for college partying than high school vacations (“The center of spring break action,” raves one student travel Web site). Ms. Lamonaca persuaded her parents to let her go if she paid her own way — so she worked every day after school to save up about $1,200.
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Sound the Alarm? A Swine Flu Bind
By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN, M.D.
Published: April 27, 2009
For all that scientists have learned about influenza since the catastrophic pandemic of 1917-19, one thing has not changed: the predictably unpredictable nature of the viruses that cause it.
Published: April 27, 2009
For all that scientists have learned about influenza since the catastrophic pandemic of 1917-19, one thing has not changed: the predictably unpredictable nature of the viruses that cause it.
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Opinion- Globalism Goes Viral
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: April 27, 2009
In these post-cold war days, we don’t face a single concentrated threat. We face a series of decentralized, transnational threats: jihadi terrorism, a global financial crisis, global warming, energy scarcity, nuclear proliferation and, as we’re reminded today, possible health pandemics like swine flu.
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: April 27, 2009
In these post-cold war days, we don’t face a single concentrated threat. We face a series of decentralized, transnational threats: jihadi terrorism, a global financial crisis, global warming, energy scarcity, nuclear proliferation and, as we’re reminded today, possible health pandemics like swine flu.
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Opinion-Where Will the Swine Flu Go Next?
By JOHN M. BARRY
Published: April 27, 2009
New Orleans
Published: April 27, 2009
New Orleans
AS the swine flu threatens to become the next pandemic, the biggest questions are whether its transmission from human to human will be sustained and, if so, how virulent it might become. But even if this virus were to peter out soon, there is a strong possibility it would only go underground, quietly continuing to infect some people while becoming better adapted to humans, and then explode around the world.
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Flu New Threat to Global Finance
The financial crisis in the United States has reverberated around the world. Now the country faces a new challenge to its economic health — fallout from the swine flu crisis. It’s not yet clear, but the repercussions for the global economy could be severe.
The financial crisis in the United States has reverberated around the world. Now the country faces a new challenge to its economic health — fallout from the swine flu crisis. It’s not yet clear, but the repercussions for the global economy could be severe.
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Stocks Drop Amid Swine Flu Concerns
By JACK HEALY
Published: April 27, 2009
As fears grew about a deadly outbreak of swine flu, investors on Monday performed the financial equivalent of washing their hands and donning surgical masks. They bought heavily into drug stocks, spurned the Mexican peso and shied away from pork producers[...]
Published: April 27, 2009
As fears grew about a deadly outbreak of swine flu, investors on Monday performed the financial equivalent of washing their hands and donning surgical masks. They bought heavily into drug stocks, spurned the Mexican peso and shied away from pork producers[...]
But declines in the United States turned into a rout in Mexico, the center of the outbreak, where 149 people have died and more than 1,300 have probably been infected. The Mexican Bolsa stock index dropped more than 3 percent, the peso fell 4 percent against the dollar, and shares of Mexican food companies, retailers and transportation companies dropped sharply.
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Obama Seeks to Ease Fears on Swine Flu
By ROBERT PEAR and GARDINER HARRIS
Published: April 27, 2009
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration dispatched high-level officials from several agencies Monday to allay concerns about swine flu and to demonstrate that it was fully prepared to confront the outbreak even as the president said there was “not a cause for alarm.”
By ROBERT PEAR and GARDINER HARRIS
Published: April 27, 2009
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration dispatched high-level officials from several agencies Monday to allay concerns about swine flu and to demonstrate that it was fully prepared to confront the outbreak even as the president said there was “not a cause for alarm.”
Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security, and Dr. Richard E. Besser, the acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the administration was prepared to respond to any further spread of the swine flu virus.
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