Here are some informative links about Swine Flu:
Read about the Key Facts about Swine Influenza here
Questions & Answers about Swine Flu here
An updated case count of confirmed swine flu infections in the United States is available here
How does flu spread? Get the answer here
Why is flu a seasonal disease? Get the answer here
Read about the history of the 1918 pandemic from the CDC here and here
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Monday, April 27, 2009
Is Swine Flu ‘The Big One’ Or A Flu That Fizzles?
New cases of swine flu continue to emerge around the globe, from Ohio to Nova Scotia to New Zealand. The declaration of a "public health emergency" in the United States has further stoked fears and confusion.
The inevitable question arises: Is this the big one? Is this the next big global flu epidemic that public health experts have long anticipated and worried about? Is this the novel virus that will kill millions around the world like the infamous 'Spanish Flu' of 1918 (See Wikipedia article here)
The short answer is it's too soon to tell.
This is a new virus so there's no natural immunity. It has the potential to spread very widely. That's what raises worries about a possible pandemic. Every epidemic has its own behavior. There's really no way of predicting. This could really just fade out or it could become very serious. There have been false alarms before. In 1976 soldiers at Fort Dix, N.J., became sick with an unusual form of swine flu. Federal officials vaccinated 40 million Americans. But, the pandemic never materialized. To this day, health officials don't know why the 1976 virus petered out.
The people who died in Mexico are young, healthy people in their 20s, 30s and 40s. That's a big deal. More disturbing, this virus seems to spread among people fairly easily. The 1918 pandemic began with a wave of mild illness that hit in the spring of 1918, followed by a far deadlier wave in the fall which was most lethal to young, healthy adults. Scientists have speculated that something happened to the virus after the first wave — one theory held that it infected pigs or other animals and mutated there — before revisiting humans in a deadlier form.
This outbreak of Swine Flu is certainly cause for concern but not alarm. The warmer temperatures of summer should halt the spread of the virus. The virus might return in winter but scientists should have vaccines and medicines to combat the virus by then.
Visit the website of the Centers for Disease Control(CDC) here
The inevitable question arises: Is this the big one? Is this the next big global flu epidemic that public health experts have long anticipated and worried about? Is this the novel virus that will kill millions around the world like the infamous 'Spanish Flu' of 1918 (See Wikipedia article here)
The short answer is it's too soon to tell.
This is a new virus so there's no natural immunity. It has the potential to spread very widely. That's what raises worries about a possible pandemic. Every epidemic has its own behavior. There's really no way of predicting. This could really just fade out or it could become very serious. There have been false alarms before. In 1976 soldiers at Fort Dix, N.J., became sick with an unusual form of swine flu. Federal officials vaccinated 40 million Americans. But, the pandemic never materialized. To this day, health officials don't know why the 1976 virus petered out.
The people who died in Mexico are young, healthy people in their 20s, 30s and 40s. That's a big deal. More disturbing, this virus seems to spread among people fairly easily. The 1918 pandemic began with a wave of mild illness that hit in the spring of 1918, followed by a far deadlier wave in the fall which was most lethal to young, healthy adults. Scientists have speculated that something happened to the virus after the first wave — one theory held that it infected pigs or other animals and mutated there — before revisiting humans in a deadlier form.
This outbreak of Swine Flu is certainly cause for concern but not alarm. The warmer temperatures of summer should halt the spread of the virus. The virus might return in winter but scientists should have vaccines and medicines to combat the virus by then.
Visit the website of the Centers for Disease Control(CDC) here
Friday, April 17, 2009
Five Lessons From The Great Depression of 1930
The global economy is in a synchronized downturn. The economies of America, Europe and Japan are going to shrink by 2 to 5 percent in 2009. Emerging economies like China and India are going to suffer a sharp slowdown. Growth in China is going to fall from 11 percent to 7 percent while that in India is going to fall from 9 percent to under 6 percent. The current downturn is the biggest downturn in the last 70 years since the Great Depression of 1930.
What is being done by Central Bankers and Governments across the world to prevent a repeat of 1930? What are the lessons learnt? Read a nice article on this here
What is being done by Central Bankers and Governments across the world to prevent a repeat of 1930? What are the lessons learnt? Read a nice article on this here
Don’t Count Your Recoveries Before They’re Hatched
Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, sees “green shoots.” President Obama sees “glimmers of hope.” And the stock market has been on a tear. Are we out of the woods? Is the recession about to end? The recent news is certainly better but there are many reasons to be cautious about the economic outlook.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has just issued its gloomiest forecast ever. It says world GDP, which has never shrunk since the Great Depression, will shrink 1.3% in 2009, and then inch up to 1.9% in 2010. Growth of less than 2% indicates a global recession. So, serious recovery will not come before 2011.
The IMF sees world growth being strangled by what it calls negative feedback loops. The financial crisis first reduces cash flow to producing sectors. This causes a recession, with producing sectors slashing production and employment. But the recession then makes the financial crisis worse — more corporations and individuals default on bank loans. The banks respond by cutting credit further, and this hits production and employment further. This is the negative feedback loop.
The current global recession is likely to be unusually long and severe and the recovery sluggish because it sprang from a financial crisis. New IMF analysis shows recessions tied to a financial crisis, like the current one that has its roots in reckless lending for the U.S. housing market, are more difficult to shake because they are often held back by weak demand. Worse still is that today's recession combines a financial crisis at the heart of the United States, the world's
largest economy, with a broader global downturn making it unique.
The 2001 recession officially lasted only eight months, ending in November of that year. But unemployment kept rising for another year and a half. The same thing happened after the 1990-91 recession. And there’s every reason to believe that it will happen this time too. Don’t be surprised if unemployment keeps rising right through 2010.
Why? “V-shaped” recoveries, in which employment comes roaring back, take place only when there’s a lot of pent-up demand. That’s not what’s going on this time: today, the economy is depressed, loosely speaking, because we ran up too much debt and built too many shopping malls, and nobody is in the mood for a new burst of spending.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has just issued its gloomiest forecast ever. It says world GDP, which has never shrunk since the Great Depression, will shrink 1.3% in 2009, and then inch up to 1.9% in 2010. Growth of less than 2% indicates a global recession. So, serious recovery will not come before 2011.
The IMF sees world growth being strangled by what it calls negative feedback loops. The financial crisis first reduces cash flow to producing sectors. This causes a recession, with producing sectors slashing production and employment. But the recession then makes the financial crisis worse — more corporations and individuals default on bank loans. The banks respond by cutting credit further, and this hits production and employment further. This is the negative feedback loop.
The current global recession is likely to be unusually long and severe and the recovery sluggish because it sprang from a financial crisis. New IMF analysis shows recessions tied to a financial crisis, like the current one that has its roots in reckless lending for the U.S. housing market, are more difficult to shake because they are often held back by weak demand. Worse still is that today's recession combines a financial crisis at the heart of the United States, the world's
largest economy, with a broader global downturn making it unique.
The 2001 recession officially lasted only eight months, ending in November of that year. But unemployment kept rising for another year and a half. The same thing happened after the 1990-91 recession. And there’s every reason to believe that it will happen this time too. Don’t be surprised if unemployment keeps rising right through 2010.
Why? “V-shaped” recoveries, in which employment comes roaring back, take place only when there’s a lot of pent-up demand. That’s not what’s going on this time: today, the economy is depressed, loosely speaking, because we ran up too much debt and built too many shopping malls, and nobody is in the mood for a new burst of spending.
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