Re: Pandemic seems to be leveling off, expert says Originally Posted by Miwila 
Yes right....leveling off. That's probably because it was another product of overhyped media fearmongering to begin with. People who don't watch tv or use the internet must be the happiest beings on the planet.
It is not the number of cases that is important. It is who is dying that makes this makes this virus more than overhyped fearmongering!
I work in acute care in a magnet hospital. We are frequently having to isolate, and test for swine flu with patients that had no s/s in the ED or other floors, but showing signs after we get them.
What if you were to just think about who was getting sick now as opposed to who got sick, and died from flu in the past few years. Many of the fatal cases that we are seeing currently are in people who had a prior existing condition. But, generally, these are not the people that you would expect to die of seasonal flu because they are not elderly, or infants. As you may recall, it is the elderly or the very young that are most at risk with seasonal flu.
What is really most amazing to me, is that completely healthy pregnant women, kids, teens and young adults are dying of this flu as well without prior health problems. Pregnant women as a group are being hit hard. It just isn't normal to read of case after case of people dying this way in the spring and summer, and now into the fall. You have perhaps noticed these deaths? They appear to be completely random events. The flu may hit more than one family member yet one lives, and another dies. There is no explanation as to why. This is no hype.
http://allnurses.com/nursing-news/nu...ng-400466.html http://allnurses.com/nursing-news/nu...ow-422611.html http://allnurses.com/nursing-news/nu...lu-399332.html
A very important difference between the seasonal flu viruses and swine flu virus lies in the abilty of the swine virus to infect deep lung tissue. You just don't see this as often with seasonal flu. The lungs of some of these cases are so damaged, that ordinary vents can't oxgenate them. ECMO had to be used as a last ditch effort if it is available, and they qualify for it.
http://allnurses.com/nursing-news/nu...we-410682.html http://chealth.canoe.ca/channel_heal...&relation_id=0 Originally Posted by chealth.canoe.ca Earlier studies conducted in tissue culture and in ferrets - the best animal model for human flu - found the new virus is drawn to tissue found deep in the lung. That's a penchant it shares with H5N1. Seasonal flu viruses attack the upper airways.
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/279039 Originally Posted by www.digitaljournal.com ...the swine flu actively attaches to receptors in deep lung cells in addition to the receptors of cells in the nose and throat. This deep lung attachment activity is something that the more ordinary seasonal flu variants cannot do.
The findings support the more dangerous nature of the H1N1 virus in that it simply can attach to more cells, giving it greater variability and impact across more cell tissue.
We lost a patient well known to us recently. We had just discharged her two days prior to her admission to ICU where she died despite all interventions.
A young mother died at our hospital. She had to have an emergency C-secton. They put her on ECMO as a last resort to try and save her, but they failed. We have a child on ECMO right now. It takes two nurses to one patient to care for someone on ECMO. It is a hugh financial expense for someone that only has a 50/50 chance of surivival.
I don't always know what is going on in the rest of the hospital, but I do know that pandemics last a long time.
They last until there are no more susceptible hosts. We are now into the 8th month of this pandemic. Typically, they wax and wane
in waves of infection. We are only in the 2d wave. It is just November. What do you think is going to happen when it gets colder in the northern states? Generally flu
likes it cold although this virus has been continually killing people since April right thru
the summer as well, and is still around. I am in Florida like you but in the south
central area. I think that we are getting a respite in our area at least for now
although I am still hearing of deaths, and have colleagues whose twenty something
kids were very, very ill. Many staff on my unit have been on Tamiflu, and one lost a friend of his from this virus. That is my reality.
If you have not had to deal with this professionally or known some of the sick, then you have been lucky.
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