The United States' top general in Iraq, Ray Odierno, said today :

"I'm not sure we will ever see anyone declare victory in Iraq...."

That can't be right. Andrew Bolt declared Victory In Iraq in late 2007.



Army General Odierno, therefore, has now de-declared victory.

It sounds like the US is trying to cover up their late 2007 Iraq War win.

Must be some new kind of strategy to throw the enemy off.

Unless Andrew Bolt was wrong.

But how could that be? Look how accurately Bolt predicted the reality of the swine flu pandemic :

Australians are more likely to be eaten by mice than to die of swine flu

More than 140 Australians have died suffering from swine flu, including many children, since the first death from the virus in July.

But reports of Australians being eaten by mice are curiously rare in the Australian media. Must be another cover up to make Andrew Bolt look like a complete dickhead.

Pandemic Flu : 'The Biological Tsunami'

The Howard government spent hundreds of millions of dollars preparing for a deadly influenza pandemic through late 2005 and 2006. Anti-viral stockpiling was ramped up, large-scale rehearsals for government and emergency departments responses to a pandemic outbreak were held, millions of dollars were given to privately owned vaccine manufacturers to increase their ability to pump out alleged flu vaccines in the millions of doses for the (then) coming day when mass vaccination programs would be unveiled...

Compared to current health minister, Nicola Roxon, then health minister Tony Abbott was Mr Doom, and pandemic flu Fearmonger In Chief. He also happened to be mostly right.

From Lateline, September 13, 2005 (excerpts) :

TONY JONES: In a little publicised speech at an infectious diseases conference several months ago, the Health Minister Tony Abbott spelled out the worst-case scenario for a global avian flu pandemic. As you'll hear, contingency planning is well advanced in this country, though many thousands of deaths are still anticipated, along with the potential for social and economic chaos in a health crisis that could last six months or more....

TONY JONES : Now, would you agree that preparing this country for a possible avian flu pandemic could well be the most important job you ever do as a politician?

TONY ABBOTT: ....We don't know if a pandemic will happen, we don't know when one might happen, but if one does happen it will be a public health disaster, the magnitude of which this country has not seen at least since 1919 when we had the last flu pandemic.

....back in 1919, Australia had a Spanish flu pandemic outbreak and that killed some 13,000 Australians, in a then population of about 4 million and at different times in the first half of 1919, schools were closed, churches were closed, places of public gathering were off limits. Normal life had pretty much ceased in large parts of Australia. We have little folk memory of this thoug...

TONY JONES: You've actually said and referred to it in this way - that what a new pandemic might be like would be a sort of biological tsunami?

TONY ABBOTT: That's correct, because if we have a pandemic of the severity of the Spanish flu pandemic of 1819, many, many tens of millions of people could die in the absence of effective prophylaxis and treatment and while we are reasonably confident that antivirals can be effective in preventing people from getting the disease, there's nothing like the kind of antiviral stockpile anywhere in the world that will fully protect people....

TONY JONES: ....Hugh White has told us that the threat of a flu pandemic to Australia makes the threat of terrorism really pale into insignificance. Do you agree with him?

TONY ABBOTT: I don't think that the threat of terrorism is something that we should take lightly and there is an element of horror in man killing his fellow man, which is absent from things which are truly acts of God. But still, there is no doubt about it. A pandemic if it hits Australia and it is of the severity of the 1918 outbreak, will potentially kill many thousands of people and it's hard to imagine any terrorist attack - short of a nuclear bomb in a major city - that would have a comparable impact.

TONY JONES: I understand the quarantine arrangements that you have are quite extensive, six times 500-bed facilities, is that the case? Where would they be and how quickly could they be put in place?

TONY ABBOTT: Basically we are prepositioning the equipment necessary to stock these quarantine centres and the quarantine centres will be close by international airports.

TONY JONES: Do you think we've got our priorities right here? We have spent hundred and hundreds of millions of dollars and perhaps nearly $1 billion on border security relating to terrorism. Have we spent anywhere near that much as what you admit theoretically would be a far worse outcome if a pandemic occurred?

TONY ABBOTT: We have spent everything that we can usefully spend so far, Tony. We've got on a per capita basis just about the world's largest stockpile of antivirals. We are working very hard and as quickly as we can on a candidate pandemic vaccine. We're prepositioning these quarantine centres. We've got our national pandemic plan in place in consultation with the states and territories. We are close to achieving our stockpile of masks and syringes. So all the money that we need to spend on preparedness that we can usefully currently spend we have spent.

TONY JONES: How detailed, though, is the emergency plan? Do you have plans to evacuate cities? Do you have plans as happened back in the turn of the century, or during the First World War outbreak? Do you have plans to close down public facilities, theatres, even possibly public transport?

TONY ABBOTT: Again Tony, that would depend upon the particular virulence of the outbreak. Certainly we have plans for an escalating health response, including mobile teams, home quarantine, home treatment, so that only the very serious cases have to go to public hospitals.

The Rudd government response appears, for now, to be following the pandemic response plans drawn up in 2005 and 2006.

But will the Rudd government give vaccine makers the same immunity from prosecution for deaths, side effects and illnesses (that may result from its pandemic flu vaccine), that the Howard government was willing to grant back CSL in 2006?



.

It's, mostly, still good advice today, even if it comes from the pages of the London Times, in October, 1918, as the Spanish Flu pandemic unfolded across the world :




200,000 Brits were killed by H1N1 influenza in the nine months after that editorial was published.

If It's Not Swine Flu, Then What The Hell Is Going On?

By Darryl Mason

Why are so many people having so much trouble breathing normally?

The president of the Australian Medical Association Victoria, Harry Hemley, said doctors had been overwhelmed with people suffering respiratory infections in recent weeks.

"I would say about one-third of the population has some sort of upper respiratory infection right now, but I can't say how many of those have swine flu," he said.

So if it's not swine flu, and pollution levels in Australian cities are not causing this, then what is responsible?

The Australian government likes to boast about its 'one of the best in the world' stockpile of anti-virals, gloves and facemasks, but it seems reluctant to let them go to the front line Australians who need them the most :

Dr Hemley said many GPs had been exposed to the virus while caring for patients because protective equipment released from the Federal Government's stockpile had not yet arrived.

More than 1500 Australians are officially categorised as having been infected with Influenza A H1N1 by Monday morning, but the real figure is expected to be many thousands more.

The New Flu has already spread so far and wide across Australia that Health Minister, Nicola Roxon, has announced they're bailing on widespread testing and hardcore quarantine measures. They're not going to stop the spread, they know it, as the American Centre For Disease Control knew and admitted more than a month ago. Quarantining rugby league players and cruise ships was just "buying some more time", no time at all as it turns out.

The Great Hope that the Rudd government will sell this week instead is the August release of a supposed vaccine against swine flu. Well, a vaccine against the swine flu virus that is rapidly spreading now, and it may well mutate further by the time August rolls around, which would render the prepared vaccine not so effective, or downright useless.

Those with pre-existing health conditions, children and the elderly are expected to be the more likely to suffer seriously from the New Flu, though many of the deaths already reported from the virus in the US and Mexico seem to centre around people aged between 5 and 30 years old.

Nicola Roxon said that infected Australians who were now in intensive care were mostly those who were already suffering "respiratory illnesses."

And doctors are reportedly overwhelmed with "people suffering respiratory infections".

So, you have all these people apparently already suffering from respiratory problems while a fast-spreading previously unknown influenza virus seems to be hitting the hardest those already having trouble breathing normally.

It's a hell of a way for a country to head into Winter, and its peak flu months.

We are now only entering the second week of a new pandemic reality, one that may take 18 months to two years or more to unfold.

While the Rudd government will try to be seen as doing Everything It Can, the curious new influenza strain will do whatever it's going to do, mostly unhindered, for the next few months at least, by vaccines and containment measures.

How do you go to war against something that can spawn three generations of itself in under 60 seconds?

If you can't get your hands on pharmaceutical anti-virals, star aniseed is better than nothing, and some would argue far better in fact than the side-effect addled Tamiflu.

It's Not A Wonder Drug, Merv, It's A Wonder Vaccine

By Darryl Mason

As I wrote here on The Orstrahyun, June 4 :

Joel Fitzgibbon's resignation is just another curious example of Ruddlife imitating The Hollow Men, instead of the other way around. The episode where the PM's staff battled to decide whether it looked better for the prime minister to sack his defence minister, or accept his resignation, was only repeated on the ABC a couple of weeks ago.

The Budget episode of The Hollow Men, aired a week before treasurer Wayne Swann delivered the real one, was also full of key phrases and words that were put to good use when Swann and Rudd and Julia Gillard stepped in front of the media to sell it.

You'll know some sort of Evil Lefty ABC conspiracy is afoot if the Wonder Drug episode of The Hollow Men airs a week or two before the Rudd government begins seriously trying to sell the swine flu Wonder Vaccine

The instant classic 'Wonder Drug' episode of The Hollow Men aired again last Friday.

Next week begins the hardcore Big Sell by the Rudd government of a claimed swine flu vaccine.

RuddLife imitates The Hollow Men again.

The Rudd government has already committed to buy some 10 million doses of swine flu vaccine, even one that only has had, maximum, ten weeks of clinical trials :

Novartis, which has its Australian headquarters in Sydney, announced it had successfully completed cell-based production of the first batch of A(H1N1) vaccine.

"Based on that success, the company expects to be able to achieve rapid production," a Novartis spokesman said.

"The vaccine is in clinical trials now.''

Australian pharmaceutical company CSL said it would continue to develop a vaccine in Australia. Spokeswoman Dr Rachel David said CSL was conducting clinical trials of vaccines to determine the ideal dosage.

Nothing yet on possible side effects, and how the side effects compare to actually enduring and getting over a bout with swine flu.

No Australian deaths related to swine flu yet but the first fatalities blamed on the virus must only be a few days or a week away at the most. If not, Australia will be a curious anomaly as it will have some of the highest infection rates per capita but the lowest death rate.

The following numbers are of confirmed cases of infection, but the true numbers are probably far higher.

The government has confirmed 1441 cases of swine flu, including 1011 cases in Victoria, 160 in NSW, 90 in Queensland, 59 in Western Australia, 47 in South Australia, 41 in ACT, 17 in the Northern Territory and 16 in Tasmania.

I've been out of it for a few days with some kind of nasty bastard flu. That's why it's been quite around here. First time in a couple of years I've had anything that shut down the mini-writing factory for more than a day, or two. Don't like that. Forced to stop because the brain is too fogged out to function properly makes me very angry.

I went to the local medical centre to get checked out on Thursday, but it was standing room only. and they were only seeing "emergency cases", outside of those already booked in. First free appointment is Monday, 11pm. The only other two doctors within walking distance are likewise booked solid.

Either there are a lot of people around here feeling as utterly crap as I am, or a lot of locals have simply decided to exercise caution and headed to the doctor's when symptoms manifested they felt uneasy about.

There must be many other towns across Australia this weekend where it is next to impossible to find a doctor or medical centre that isn't fully booked.

Not much about swamped medical centres in the news yet. Maybe my neighbourhood is filled with hypochondriacs.

I knuckled last Monday, in spare hours, to finally finish the long overdue rewrite of the ED Day : Dead Sydney novel I published online in 2007 and 2008. It's a strange thing indeed to be working on a novel about life in Sydney after a flu pandemic at the same time a real pandemic is declared and then coming down with a flu that is fairly debilitating, heading for the local medical centre, finding it all but over-run with other flu patients....

I thought I became slightly obsessive with the hand-washing over the past few weeks. Didn't stop me from catching whatever this flu is.

I'd have to be feeling a hell of a lot sicker than this, however, before I volunteered to take a vaccine only a couple of weeks old, and fresh out of very brief clinical trials.

Obviously, there will be more on all this when the old energy levels return, and if I learn anything interesting from the doctor visit on Monday, I'll write it up here.

I'm Heading For My Pandemic Bunker, Australian Swine Flu Cases Have Soared 300%

Dramatic breaking news from the never hysterical Rupert Murdoch online media portal, news.com.au :



Good God! Triple! Within a matter of days. This is out of control. Is it now time to salt the corpses of your neighbours for post-pandemic survival rations? Before any of us do anything that drastic, let's go to the story :

Australia now has three confirmed cases of swine flu.

Oh.

Well, the headline was true. There was one confirmed case of an Australian becoming infected with HumanBirdPig Flu, and now there's two more.

So yes, HumanBirdPig Flu cases in Australia have tripled, they have, in fact, soared 300%.

Headline hit baiting at its best.

UPDATE : Just a quick note to point out that I'm not mocking the people who are sick with swine flu, but the senational nature of the reporting. This can be an extremely nasty flu, and small children in particular who get it are going to feel extremely unwell, and going on what has happened elsewhere in the world, some of those children will die from the virus.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I believe that hundreds if not thousands of Australians have already caught ManBirdPig Flu, but wrote off the symptoms as 'normal' influenza, or a particularly nasty case of the flu they catch most years, and didn't seek medical attention.

The majority of Australians do not go to the doctor or hospital when they catch the influenza strains that pass amongst us every year around this time.

This means that a few dozen who had ManBirdPig Flu did not feel ill enough to stay home or go to a doctor, and ended up spreading it amongst friends and family and fellow commuters.

Short of a major mutation and/or a further melding of this virus with other influenza viruses, like H5N1 (bird flu), I don't think ManBirdPig Flu is going to wipe out hundreds of thousands of people here. But it will probably claim a few hundred lives, or more, before our immune systems learn how to fight it, and adapt to its presence in the flutopia of viruses and bacteria our bodies are continually at war against.

UPDATE : According to a "sensitive but unclassified" May 19 report from the US Centre For Disease Control, 64% of all confirmed or probable ManBirdPig Flu cases in the US occurred in people aged 5 - 24 years old. This is a New Flu that attacks the immune systems of the young and healthy.

Aporkalypse, Please

By Darryl Mason

The first confirmed case of an Australian with swine flu, actually in Australia - but she had it in the US and claims she was no longer sick or showing symptoms when she boarded a plane to come home - is announced to massive media freakout on a slow news day.

So how did the Saturday 5pm news on Channel 10 in Sydney deal with one confirmed case of Australian Has Swine Flu! as the first story of the bulletin, without being too dramatic? Cut to newsreader questioning Some Expert :

Newsreader : Is it time to panic?

Some Expert : No.

It's like the declarations from government health departments and the World Health Organisation warning us, "Don't Panic!" as though there will come a time of "Fuck Yes, Panic Now!" announcements.

Newsreader : Health Minister, there are now 2000 confirmed cases of ManBirdPig Flu in Australia, with dozens of deaths. Is it time now for the Australian public to panic?

Health Minister : "Yes. Yes I do think the time has come for everyone to panic."

Newsreader : Are you panicking right now?"

Health Minister : "Yes. I am panicking. This is me in a state of panic."

Newsreader : "Sorry, minister, I couldn't hear you clearly over what sounds like breaking waves and a game of beach volleyball in the background there."

Health Minister (off) : "....close the fucking door, Wayne!"

Newsreader : "Minister?"

Health Minister : "Sorry, it was...the TV...in my hotel room...in Canberra."

Newsreader : "Just how should the Australian people panic, minister? Should they go all out bat fucking shit crazy, and start killing their neighbours and salting their corpses for future meals when quality food will be scarce? Or should we remain in homes for a third month and watch TV and shiver just a little at this news and make little defeated wincing, sighing and choking-sob noises instead?"

Health Minister : "I'd advise against the gathering and preserving of other working families for later consumption, at this time. It is in the interest of all Australians to remain calm even as we move through this state of obvious and prolonged panic."

Newsreader : "So you're saying the Australian people should stay calm but feel free to panic?"

Health Minister : "Yes, as long as your frantic panic is confined to your home, and you don't break anything and you don't start grabbing your family members by the shoulders and shaking them as you scream 'God hates us! He really does!' over and over again until you fall exhausted and dehydrated to the floor."

Newsreader : "So we can panic, but we need to remain calm in our panic?"

Health Minister : "Yes, that's exactly correct."

Newsreader : "Thank you."

Health Minister : "Thank you."

Newsreader : "In other news, the NRL is reeling after more group sex allegations surfaced, but this time no females were involved..."

Health Minister (off) : "...that's what I told that clue-bat worthy idiot. I just can't believe how fucking doomed they all are back there."

Newsreader : "..........I'm sorry, it appears the health minister's microphone is still on and we are trying to get the..."

Health Minister (off) : "....well you tell Kev he should have thought about packing his own frigging hair dryer before we evacuated. And another thing, Wayne, if I'm going to be staying here for six months, I want a bungalow right on the beach, goddammit. I'm not spending half a year in Vanuatu living in some damp shack a half kay back from the frigging beach."

Newsreader : "In breaking news, the federal government and opposition have announced the relocation of Parliament to a well-defended, heavily stockpiled island in Vanuatu, for the immediate future."

I think there are probably dozens, if not hundreds, of people in Australia who have picked up the swine flu virus in the past five weeks or so, and because they are used to dealing with flu symptoms most years without feeling the need or urgency to see a doctor, they don't know they picked it up, suffered briefly and with no mammothic discomfort, and are now feeling much better.

It's a flu, one that will probably prove more fatal to those it infects than seasonal Influenza A viruses usually do, but it does not deliver vastly different symptoms than those 'usual' flu. You'll only know you've got or had ManBirdPig Flu once you've been tested by a doctor.

If the New Flu made your nose change into a snout, or made you puke out the inside of your own leg, then yes, it would be obvious you'd picked up H1N1 and dozens of people a week would be announced to have become infected.

Even if H1N1 turns into a pandemic and kills 2% of everyone it infects, these deaths are not going to happen all in one week or month or probably not even in the same year.

Twenty or thirty thousand Australians dying from HumanBirdPig Flu over 18 months will be big news, and the changes to the most basic functioning of society from widespread absenteeism will be monumental and unavoidable, but the deaths, if they come, will come in waves, across those many months.

With constant nightly news attention focused around the spread of a virus that is killing hundreds a week, even the news of an ongoing pandemic will get old for most, or will want to be mostly avoided by those who have already lost friends and family to the virus.

A pandemic killing tens of thousands of Australians in a year will be one of the biggest stories of the century, but it will be one of the hardest for the media to cover, respectfully, and without hysteria, and also maintain interest in.

The science is difficult, the lies and deceptions from governments about what is actually going on will be monumental and the visuals of people lining up outside hospitals, or bodies being carried from homes, the mass funerals, the quarantined being interviewed from behind their living room windows, and barren city streets and squares, will quickly become boring to most viewers.

A pandemic is not a fast moving story, at least not fast enough for the speed of today's news, it will crawl along, a tragedy that unfolds slowly filled mostly with intimate dramas behind the front doors of quarantined homes. And there will be months when nothing happens at all, when road accidents and heart disease deaths beat out pandemic influenza for 'Most Deaths This Month.'

I'm sure the evening news will give us maps of Australia with death tallies for each state and territory, too, if a pandemic becomes reality, and you'll know just how serious the pandemic actually is by whether the reporter 'on the scene' will be wearing a face mask or a full biosuit, breathing like Darth Vader.


Aporkalypse Now?

Aporkalypse When?

August, 2007 : Bird Flu-Infected Chickens Fed To Pigs In Bali

Is This Where HumanBirdPig Flu Began?

By Darryl Mason

The World Health Organisation rejected a hopeless campaign by The Orstrahyun to have the new swine flu virus officially titled Pork Throat. Instead, the WHO has gone with Influenza A H1N1 as its official reference term for the new influenza virus, which contains the genes of human, bird and pig flu strains.

This retitling has led to an immediate downturn of interest amongst the public in the pandemic potential of the virus, which may have been part of the intention of giving this bizarre influenza such an academic, book lurnin' name.

But, to shift into serious news mode, how did strains of pig, human and bird flu first meet up, and start swapping genes in order to mutate into Influenza A H1N1?

There are theories, but nothing solid. Yet.

A possible source, or at least a scenario where such an unlikely blending of influenza viruses could have taken place, can be found in this report on two human deaths from the H5N1 (bird flu) virus back in September, 2007 :

Suyono said there had been sick chickens around the woman's house and many had died suddenly in recent weeks.

"The villagers didn't burn the carcasses. Instead they buried them or fed them to pigs," Suyono added.

Contact with sick fowl is the most common way for humans to contract the H5N1 virus.

Human to human transmission of the bird flu virus was believed to be occuring in Bali, by August 2007, though it did not prove to be highly transmissible, and further infections were usually contained within Balinese families living amongst bird-flu infected poultry, or those caring for bird-flu infected relatives.

You'll probably see this story in next week's Sunday Telegraph as well.

The Orstrahyun Reports, The Health Department Acts

The Ostrahyun, Sunday April 26 :

...the Australian government stockpiles of Tamiflu are believed to have reached their expiration dates late last year.

The Sunday Telegraph, May 3 :

Responding to questions from The Sunday Telegraph, a spokesman for Health Minister Nicola Roxon revealed 1.6 million packs (of Tamiflu) were removed from the Commonwealth's stockpile this month because they had passed their use-by date.

The difference here is that the Sunday Telegraph gets calls or e-mails back from the Health Department when contacted for comment about expired anti-virals stockpiles.

Thanks to Viro for that one week earlier news tip.


The Last Time We Were On The Brink Of A Pandemic, Flu Killed 150 In Sydney In Less Than Three Weeks

Yes, I'm Ready To Panic....But There's So Many Potential Panic Pandemics To Choose From

The Geek :

Driving around listening to even the most sombre news radio stations felt like playing a small role in the opening chapters of The Stand...

The radio coverage of WHO's Margaret Chan warning, "All countries should immediately now activate their pandemic preparedness plans," had a truly B-Grade thriller feel. It seemed to demand an immediate slam cut to montage-worthy shots of black helicopters landing in shopping malls and disgorging squads of troops in NBC suits to insist at bayonet point on proper hand-washing technique and hanky usage.

A throwaway comment by The Geek about waiting a week before deciding whether or not to panic over "piggy flu", or as it's otherwise known....

H1N1/Pork Throat/Bacon Lung/Porky's Revenge II/Probably China's Fault Virus/Swine Flu/the Hamdemic/The Aporkalypse/Non-Semitically-Offensive-Related Descriptor Fever/North American Flu

...inspired the creation of this site :

Is It Time To Panic?

Text messages to the world culled from Twitter will help you decide if it truly is time to panic, or whether you should wait a bit. Thousands of short, sharp, snaps of wit, insight, crap, LOLability, weirdness and WTFery can be your handy guide to not panicking too soon, or too late.

And if you're sick of (not sick from) swine flu, there's a pandicomica of potential panic-worthiness at IITTP to choose from:

Zombie Apocalypse

Asteroid

Robot Uprising

Pirates

Ninjas

Killer Bees

Killer Bees That Shoot Swine Flu Out Of Their Tiny Mouths

Oprah

Something for everyone.

When Washing Your Hands Is Caving In To A Rudd Fear Campaign

By Darryl Mason

The Professional Idiot yesterday thought this is good advice to lessen the chance of becoming infected with the new ManBirdPig flu virus, or Influenza A H1N1 :

1: Don’t go to Mexico. Step 2: Wash your hands.

He thinks this is good advice, and it is, but it's NOT when Prime Minister Rudd thinks so :

...there is no fear so ill-founded that Kevin “Do Something” Rudd isn’t on hand to offer totally unnecessary advice designed to make you worry more, not less:

Wash your hands, PM says

Wash Your Hands = Totally Unnecessary Advice.

This whip-lashing about face by The Professional Idiot on simple hygiene took less than 12 hours. A brain scan may be needed.

Do you think The Professional Idiot told his family to stop washing their hands to prove that he's right and PM Rudd is a crazed fearmongerist?

Any doctor will tell you washing your hands regularly, a few times a day, will lessen your chances of becoming infected with ANY flu virus, and people should be reminded of that simple fact at the start of every flu season, not just when the World Health Organisation raises its pandemic alert to threat level 5 out of 6.

This incomprehensible fuckwit is leading his more gullible readers down a very, very dangerous path of anti-Rudd irrationality.

UPDATE : A prediction from The Professional Idiot, for the ages :

Australians are more likely to be eaten by mice than to die of swine flu.

That sound you hear is thousands of pandemic-briefed health professionals laughing, in horror.

Some Things Are More Important Than A Pandemic

By Darryl Mason

The biggest story in the United States today is the "imminent" pandemic of Swine Flu/Pork Fever/Frankenstein Flu/H1N1/Bacon Lung. Right?

Wrong.

At least, it's not at KFSN-TV in Fresno California :



The very popular video of a 61 year old Californian cannabis grower standing out front of a courthouse, unpacking, weighing and then repacking the twelve pounds of medicine (to check it was all there) that has just been returned to him by police, by order of a judge, can be viewed here.

More on that story and America's news obsession with cannabis stories here.


As I mentioned yesterday, while Bacon Lung, or Pork Throat (it is an upper respiratory virus) is at the top of the evening news, as the World Health Organisation raises its pandemic alert level from 5 to 6, the Australian media is having a hard time selling this story to a mostly skeptical public. There are still no deaths in Australia from it, there is no celebrity connection to it, yet, and outside of colourful heat scans of airport arrivees, and I Am Legend-like projections of what life will be like during and after a full-blown influenza pandemic, the rest of the visual story of what's actually going on is not very exciting to watch.

At all.

And readers of online daily newspapers in Australia couldn't be less interested. For now.


(click to enlarge)

Outside of The Australian, not one pre-pandemic or H1N1 influenza-related story makes the Most Popular Stories lists in the Murdoch online tabloids. In Sydney's Daily Telegraph, what may be one of the biggest story in a generation doesn't even rate in the Top Ten most viewed :



Readers of the Fairfax online newspapers are only slightly more interested, and only because Hugh Jackman's cancelled a premiere for his new movie in Mexico :


(click to enlarge)

All the Australian media would get more readers clicking on swine flu headlines if they called it Pork Throat. Or Bacon Lung. Or Year Long Sex Celebrity Weight Loss Alien Flu.

Public disinterest will change if an 'Oh, Fuck! Pandemic!' leads to the cancellation of the State Of Origin, of course, or if any of the following becomes reality :

* Belinda Neil returns from Mexico with Mad Pig Brain Fever, causing her to rant about "demon babies" and the poor service of wine bar restuarants in Mexico.

* International cricket players wind up on a slab.

* Long dead Osama Bin Laden announces in a "new video" that Al Qaeda bioweapons specialists released the virus to end the Allah-insulting American lust for deep-fried bacon.

* Barry Hall goes into 'voluntary' home isolation, coughing blood.

* The entire casts of Neighbours and Home & Away decide to do some "location shooting" on a remote, uninhabited island in the WhitSundays for the next six months.

* Mel & Kochie start broadcasting their morning show from the top of a 100 foot tower, surrounded by a moat of fire, in a remote Queensland rain forest.

* The Footy Show hosts appear in biosuits, or in glass bubbles.

* Federal parliament decides to "temporarily relocate" to a huge sealed plastic dome on top of Uluru.

* It turns out that 10% of all H1N1 victims are likely to turn into brain-hungry zombies.


US Vice President Says New Flu So Dangerous He's Already Warned His Family To Stay Out Of Planes, Trains And Automobiles - But When Did He Warn Them?


.

Aporkalypse When?

The World Health Organisation spoils Frankenstein Flu hysteria, for now :

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says there have only been seven laboratory-confirmed swine flu deaths, all in Mexico, from 79 confirmed cases around the world.

The Australian media appears to be rapidly losing interest. Frankenstein Flu has not delivered a body count here yet, despite the dozens in voluntary home 'quarantine', and seeing the isolated infection-suspected being interviewed by phone from behind their front window is about as exciting a visual for the evening news as new internet cable being laid.

Comments on news.com.au are heaving with talk of bioweapons and Big Pharma conspiracies to flog more anti-virals (the old stockpiles are hitting or passed their expiration dates), but the mainstream media hasn't even begun to nibble at any of this stuff yet.

They probably won't, denying many of their readers exactly the kind of stories they want to hear and read about, even if it is to only debunk them.

The history of bioweapons and bioresearch labs mixing influenza genes, from a variety of animals, including human, bird and swine, makes for some wild, but still interesting reading.


UPDATE : First Official New Flu Death In US

From news.com.au :

• 10:56pm US swine flu child visited Mexico

Seeing media tag the 22 month old Texas victim of H1N1 as 'The Swine Flu Child' makes a calm person want to slap around some people in a news room. Just fucking ugly.

But then, merchandisers have already rushed out new baby bibs :

Err....Yessss...I Too Am An Essential Worker, Really I Am

Hopefully, Health Minister Nicola Roxon is right :

"...we have 8.7 million courses of these antivirals in our stockpile."

And this news report is wrong :

Australia has stockpiled 8.7 million doses of the Tamiflu and Relenza drugs, which are believed to be effective in treating the virus.

This one, too :

...the Government has a stockpile of nearly 9 million doses to be used in the event of threatened epidemic.

The confusion over Doses and Courses is widespread in the Australian media.

Anti-virals are only as effective as they can be if a course of them is taken, a series of doses. Catching the New Flu and taking one or two Tamiflus or Relenzas is not expected to make much difference.

During a pandemic, the government's plan is to make sure doctors, nurses, hospital staff, ambulance drivers, body collectors, firefighters, some police, essential government and infrastructure workers get the anti-virals they need to keep doing their work surrounded by, and coming in regular contact, with a killer virus.

9 million doses of anti-virals is fuck all for 21 million Australians, if a course is six to twelve doses, with "essential workers" likely needing at least few courses over the many months it would take for a pandemic, or pandemic waves, to unfold.

9 million courses, however, will allow hundreds of thousands of workers to continue doing their jobs, while the rest of the population, for varying amounts of time, are confined to their homes, either voluntarily or under police order.

If there is a pandemic.

There will be anti-viral courses left over for some of the sick, and the ramped up production of anti-virals in Australia now (300 new jobs!) will reach government distribution points in a month or two. But, if 30 to 40% of the Australian population falls ill, over six months to a year or more of pandemic waves (as some experts are now predicting), the anti-viral production output in Australia will not satisfy demand.

If a pandemic becomes reality sooner rather than later, there will be extemely hard choices that will have to be made about whether people more likely to die from the virus, even if they have treatment, should be given a course of drugs that are in limited supply.

It's a surreal reality we might on the verge of being plunged into....

If a pandemic happens.

If.

But a couple of weeks worth of food and water stockpiled in the home, just in case, and to be on the safe side, shouldn't be left to the last minute.

Like the YK2 episode, you can eventually get through all those extra cans of soup and bags of rice crowdiing up the spare room later on if nothing happens, or donate it to charity.

The QLD Government's 'Pandemic Planning In The Workplace' Guide

September 2005 : Then Health Minister Tony Abbott On Influenza Pandemic In Australia - Die In Your Homes

.

Pandemic Expert : Airport Screenings For Pig Flu Infected "Purely Political"

This pandemic expert claims it's already too late to contain the Human-Bird-Pig Flu, and airport screenings are more to do with politics than halting the spread of the virus :

Airports around the world were screening travelers from Mexico for flu symptoms. But containing the disease may not be an option.

"Anything that would be about containing it right now would purely be a political move," said Michael Osterholm, a University of Minnesota pandemic expert.

Health Minister Nicola Roxon, looking stunned, as though she just stepped out of a reality-cracking briefing from influenza experts, admits on the 7.30 Report that inflight and airport screenings for those who may be infected with the Human-Bird-Pig Flu virus are more about raising pubic awareness than containing the virus :

"...the key thing is for us to raise awareness for people who've been travelling in Mexico and the Americas, if they arrive back home, to not just brush off some flu-like symptoms, to go immediately to their doctor and have an assessment to see if they might be vulnerable."

As we move into our normal winter flu season, doctors and medical centres are going to be inundated with people concerned about symptoms of flu, who would normally not bother seeking medical help outside of what they can score over the counter at a local pharmacy or the benefits of hot lemon and honey, a 12 hour sleep and plenty of sunshine.

Nobody seems to know yet what will happen, if anything, when the new Human-Bird-Pig Flu meets the 'normal' Australian Influenza A virus, in our respiratory systems, as it very likely will in the months ahead.

Hopefully, Influenza A will smash the hell out of the newcomer.

Australia Has Been Invaded

By Darryl Mason

Today, there is a new, triple influenza virus, of which little is known, circulating in Australia. Just as we move into winter and closer to the peak of Australia's flu season, another flu virus has come to join the annual influenza party inside us.

So how do you know if the influenza you have is the new one, or just one of the old ones? You don't, until you're tested. Apparently, the symptoms of infection from the strange new influenza virus, and the human flu viruses of recent years, are all but exactly the same. You get aches, you feel like puking, you can't hold down food, your nose runs, you sneeze, you spend more time on, or with your head in, the toilet than you do in bed.

What is known is that the new influenza virus is an unnatural, never-before-seen brew of genes from human influenza, avian influenza and swine influenza. Human to human transmission of the new triple influenza virus appears to be happening faster, and easier, than with bird flu outbreaks in Indonesia in 2007 (our most recent brush with pandemic influenza), though it doesn't yet appear to be as fatal, as bird flu proved to be, for those who become infected.

However, this effect of fast, widespread infection, but lower overall mortality, may make the possibility of a pandemic more, not less, likely.

It is not in the interest of a virus to kill its host quickly, the virus wants to spread, to invade other cells, to find new hosts, to mix with other genes, to grow, to super-strength its rapid evolution, to perfect itself, to move on.

Even though fewer who are infected may die from the virus, the death toll is likely to be higher, as a prolonged human incubation, with few or no signs of possible infection for days, or a week, will allow the virus to spread itself farther through the human population.

If the pandemic mortality rate for human infections by the Human-Bird-Pig Flu virus is only 1-2%, the death toll for a hundred thousand Australians sickened by the virus would be a few thousand. But if the new virus is highly infectious, kills fewer of those it infects initially, but spreads fast across the population, we may see millions catch the virus over the longer exposure time, with tens of thousands killed.

If we are heading into a pandemic, it is likely it will unfold over many months, or more than a year. New influenza viruses rarely appear, and then quickly disappear again. They hang around, they spread and mutate, searching for the best combination of genes from its hosts to evolve further, they come and go from our bodies like once-a-year hotel guests.

The closest influenza virus that some virologists believe this new virus will be eventually matched to is the 'Spanish Flu' pandemic influenza of 1918, which killed its tens of millions of victims around the world in waves, a few months apart, each wave of the pandemic lasting two to five, or more, weeks. This kept the 'Spanish Flu' virus in circulation across the planet for more than 14 months, or longer. The longer it survived, the more it infected, and the more people it eventually killed.

There will be a human influenza pandemic, eventually, most influenza experts certainly agree on that. "Inevitable" is the word they use. And many are nervous today, about what may unfold in the months ahead if the Human-Bird-Pig Flu virus does indeed turn into a pandemic.

The best case scenario is that this will turn out to be only another pandemic close call, a brush with a virus that could kill tens of millions, but does not. This time.

Either way, the Federal Government will get to live-test its pandemic response plan.

That pandemic response plan is now getting underway. Quarantine centres near major Australian airports, including Sydney and Brisbane, are preparing to begin isolating Australians and foreigners who are showing visible signs of influenza infection as they step off planes from the United States.

There may be ugly scenes at our airports if passengers are falsely identified by others during flights to Australia as showing signs of flu infection when they're not sick, or don't believe they're sick. If one member of a family of travelers shows enough signs of infection to convince a Qantas captain to radio ahead that they have "a hot one", the whole family is expected to be placed in quarantine.

The almost incomprehensible option of completely shutting down the airports to all arrivals, including Australians returning home, is also part of the official government pandemic response plan, though no doubt the government will wait until deaths from the new virus occur here before it takes any steps that radical.

Can you imagine the fury and chaos if thousands of Australians living and holidaying internationally were told they can't come back to their own country for the time being? Particularly if there was a deadly pandemic breaking out in the rest of the world, and the growing death tolls terrified them about the fates of their friends and families?

There'd be new waves of boat people, but they'd be Australians desperately trying to get back home through closed borders.


UPDATE : As of May 7, there have been no confirmed cases of H1N1 infection in Australia.

July, 2005 : Indonesia Holds Mass Cull Of Pigs Infected With Bird Flu

The following is from The Bird Flu Blog, quotes were transcribed from a print edition of the Sydney Morning Herald, September 25, 2005 :

The Sydney Morning Herald reported yesterday that hundreds of people gathered to watch the mass slaughter and burning of dozens of pigs in a Javanese village in July this year.

The Indonesian Agriculture Minister, Anton Apriantono, warned reporters that they should be wearing masks to protect themselves as they witnessed the pig cull.

“This is very dangerous,” the minister announced, “...the virus can be transmitted through the air.”

“Don’t blame me if you get bird flu because you don’t have a mask,” he said.

The slaughter of pigs and ducks in the Tangerang region, close to Jakarta, took place after Ivan Rapei and his two young daughters died with symptoms of heavy pneumonia. Mr Rapei was confirmed to have been infected with the bird flu virus.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported tests completed in April showed pig farms with infected with bird flu, but that no official culls were ordered.

Aporkalypse Now?




By Darryl Mason

Some 25 students and teachers in New Zealand have been quarantined and checked for infection by the killer swine flu virus after returning from a trip to Mexico, where more than 1000 people have caught the communicable H1N1 influenza virus, killing more than 100. The swine flu virus has been detected in humans in three major American cities, apparently spreading from Mexico to New York in less than 72 hours.

The current swine flu virus which appears to be spreading human to human is a bizarre brew of genes from American and Asian swine influenza, human influenza and avian influenza (bird flu). Did someone spill something in a bioweapons lab?

After spending a good chunk of 2007 and 2008 researching what a killer flu pandemic could do to a city society, for my online novel, ED Day, and learning perhaps a little too much about the shocking potential for death and suffering a deadly influenza pandemic can deliver, the fast spread and high death toll of this swine flu outbreak, so far, has given me a serious case of The Fear.

The World Health Organisation regards what is now unfolding as a worse case scenario.

The first cases of human infection by this new swine flu in Mexico are believed to have been detected in mid-March, more than five weeks ago.

There is no vaccine for this virus, and it could take six months to develop and begin distributing one, with no guarantee it would stop the deaths, or halt the spread of the virus. Anti-virals, like Tamiflu, can offer some protection, but the Australian government stockpiles of Tamiflu are believed to have reached their expiration dates late last year.

We are being told, tonight, that anyone in Australia who has visited Mexico since early March, and are suffering "influenza like illness" (ILI), should get to a doctor. That's not enough. They should also be avoiding physical contact with friends and family, and wearing a face mask to stop themselves from inadvertently spreading this potentially pandemic influenza virus further.

To be truly safe, the government should immediately announce the same for anyone who has visited the United States, and New Zealand, in the past two weeks. The swine flu virus, H1N1, can be carried by humans for weeks without manifesting itself, but still allowing possible human to human transmission.

Yesterday, the US Centre for Disease Control (CDC), basically the front line soldiers for stopping the spread of pandemic influenza in the United States, admitted defeat :

CDC acting director Dr. Richard Besser told reporters in a telephone briefing it was likely too late to try to contain the outbreak, by vaccinating, treating or isolating people.

The CDC must know a lot more about just how far and wide the swine flu virus has already spread in the United States to officially make such a stunning claim.

The Australian FedGov's Pandemic Influenza website is here, but it is woefully un-updated.

UPDATE : The Mexican government is asking the public to wear face masks, stay away from large gatherings - schools, shopping malls, sports stadiums, train stations, have been closed in Mexico City (population 22 million) and obey the following rules :

...avoid large crowds, refrain from kissing as a greeting and maintain a distance of at least 1.8 meters (six feet) from each other.

Shaking hands should also definitely be out. During the SARS and Ebola Virus outbreaks, WHO officials visiting infected countries developed the habit of tapping elbows when they greeted someone, instead of shaking hands. Like this :



The federal government is expected to hold what amounts to emergency meetings on how to deal with a possible, looming pandemic on Monday and Tuesday.

You will be able to judge for yourself how serious the threat of a swine flu pandemic is in Australia, before any official announcement, by how quickly government ministers and the media start talking about the importance of :

Social Distancing


UPDATE : Would it be tasteless to start referring to this new deadly virus as ManBirdPig Flu?

It's certainly accurate.

Thanks to an anonymous commenter for the suggestion.


UPDATE : I just got an e-mail from a virologist who helped me on some details for the ED Day novel. He said he would call what's going on now "pre-pandemic", meaning if a pandemic was to become reality, this is pretty much how it would begin, that this is what the first few days would look like : one big central outbreak, then rapid a stream of reported infections around the world.

He said it's still too soon to say whether the swine flu virus is more than likely to become a pandemic, though he noted that at least one virologist he knows well is claiming the World Health Organisation is preparing to move its Pandemic Threat Level from 3 to 4, on a scale of 1 to 6.

I asked him if other virologists and pandemic specialists were nervous, he replied that every time there's another run of human deaths from H5N1 (bird flu) - there's been at least three deaths in Egypt, and two or three in Vietnam, from H5N1, in the past week - his peers get nervous. Human to human transmission of swine flu is simply bad news in general, but pandemics of swine flu and bird flu spreading at the same time is the stuff of nightmares.

He also said that most mainstream media are particularly hopeless at accurately reporting medical stories, infuriatingly so. He said he doesn't hold out much hope the reportage of the swine flu virus from the mainstream media will impress him and his colleagues.

More On This Soon