This is the best they can do?

A young woman in Ohio get the swine flu and dies.

Why is this a news story on lefty marxist blogs?

Because she lived in Republican John Boehner’s district.

No, seriously.

Update:  JWF links a news article which says the woman didn’t die from swine flu after all.  I suppose this lets the quick-care clinic off the hook for giving the woman pain meds instead of tamiflu.

New strain of H1N1 found

from Straits Times

SAO PAULO – BRAZILIAN scientists have identified a new strain of the H1N1 virus after examining samples from a patient in Sao Paulo, their institute said on Tuesday.

The variant has been called A/Sao Paulo/1454/H1N1 by the Adolfo Lutz Bacteriological Institute, which compared it with samples of the A(H1N1) swine flu from California.

The genetic sequence of the new sub-type of the H1N1 virus was isolated by a virology team lead by one of its researchers, Terezinha Maria de Paiva, the institute said in a statement.

The mutation comprised of alterations in the Hemagglutinin protein which allows the virus to infect new hosts, it said.

It was not yet known whether the new strain was more aggressive than the current A(H1N1) virus which has been declared pandemic by the World Health Organization.

more :

US agencies not ready for flu
Dade youngster is first Florida fatality
95% of Utah flu cases are H1N1
Health experts offer more information on H1N1

Educator is NYC’s first swine-flu death

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A New York City school principal suffering from swine flu died on Sunday, becoming the city’s first death due to H1N1 flu, medical officials said.

Mitchell Wiener, 55, died after being admitted to Flushing Hospital Medical Center several days ago with the H1N1 flu virus, said Dr. Andrew Rubin, a hospital spokesman. A city Health Department spokeswoman also confirmed a death, but could not confirm the victim’s identity.

It was the first death in New York City, where many of the U.S. cases have been reported but with mostly mild symptoms.

Wiener had been in and out of consciousness and was being treated with an experimental drug, but family members had said as recently as Saturday that he was making some progress.

Source: reuters.com

Mr Wiener was the Assistant Principal of Intermediate School 236 in Queens, which was closed along with several others after staff members reported sick.

Three additional schools in Queens will be closed beginning tomorrow, as health officials have documented growing flu levels.

NowPublic

Tags: New York | Family | Health | death | World | Swine Flu | swine-flu

Level 6?

Remember the story of Felipe Solis?

On April 16, “President Obama was received at Mexico’s anthropology museum in Mexico City by Felipe Solis, a distinguished archeologist who died the following day from symptoms similar to flu, Reforma newspaper reported.” link

Well, Mexican authorities are now saying that Solis died of a heart attack,  not the flu.  Further, his death occurred one week after greeting Obama, not one day later as originally reported.  This is according to a report from Greg Contreras.

Odd, isn’t it?

From full-court press coverage of infections, inspections, and detections*, of the potential world-wide swine flu pandemic, climaxing with Joe Biden’s famous declaration that there was no way he was getting on public transportation, coverage of the spread of H1N1 has undergone an overnight transformation. Now, only the official numbers from W.H.O. are reported.  Headlines are suggesting that Mexico has turned the corner,  the spread of the disease is stabilizing, and the proverbial bullet has been dodged.

Actual numbers of infections and deaths have shrunk to non-panic inducing levels, and, except for the large number of school closings, it is back to normal in the US. But, are the statistics reliable? One of the more interesting articles I read over the weekend was from Newsweek, which included this snippet:

Another physician, who spoke with NEWSWEEK en Español but asked not to be identified, claimed that in the Gea González Hospital—the biggest facility run by the Ministry of Health in Mexico City—doctors have been explicitly told not to record pneumonia as a cause of death. “You must say that they died of cardiac arrest or anything else,” said the physician about the instruction given to them.

It makes me wonder if this could be related to the Felipe Solis story …

And, today, Fox News is reporting that WHO is likely to raise the pandemic threat level to 6, and declare an official pandemic.

Go figure.

*from alice’s restaraunt

Baby can you dig your man?

An interesting comment from “Have your say” at BBC News …

I work as a resident doctor in one of the biggest hospitals in Mexico City and sadly, the situation is far from “under control”. As a doctor, I realise that the media does not report the truth. Authorities distributed vaccines among all the medical personnel with no results, because two of my partners who worked in this hospital (interns) were killed by this new virus in less than six days even though they were vaccinated as all of us were. The official number of deaths is 20, nevertheless, the true number of victims are more than 200. I understand that we must avoid to panic, but telling the truth it might be better now to prevent and avoid more deaths.

Yeny Gregorio Dávila, Mexico City

cue video …