Friday night Pandemic Watch - Swine Flu coming to you?

[Nordic]

If it does not happen this time, it *will* happen another.

So? It's inevitable that at some time the earth will get hit by a big-ass asteroid, too.

So I should panic?

I'm with Chlamor on this one.

[Nordic]

Why is it I can't stop thinking about this:

http://www.slate.com/id/2126479/

You Can't Handle the Truth
Psy-ops propaganda goes mainstream.
By Sharon Weinberger
Posted Monday, Sept. 19, 2005, at 6:31 AM ET

LONDON—Over the past 24 hours, seven people have checked into hospitals here with telltale symptoms. Rashes, vomiting, high temperature, and cramps: the classic signs of smallpox. Once thought wiped out, the disease is back and threatening a pandemic of epic proportions.

The government faces a dilemma: It needs people to stay home, but if the news breaks, mass panic might ensue as people flee the city, carrying the virus with them.

A shadowy media firm steps in to help orchestrate a sophisticated campaign of mass deception. Rather than alert the public to the smallpox threat, the company sets up a high-tech "ops center" to convince the public that an accident at a chemical plant threatens London. As the fictitious toxic cloud approaches the city, TV news outlets are provided graphic visuals charting the path of the invisible toxins. Londoners stay indoors, glued to the telly, convinced that even a short walk into the streets could be fatal.

This scenario may sound like a rejected plot twist from a mediocre Bond flick, but one company is dead set on making this fantasy come to life.

Strategic Communication Laboratories, a small U.K. firm specializing in "influence operations" made a very public debut this week with a glitzy exhibit occupying prime real estate at Defense Systems & Equipment International, or DSEi, the United Kingdom's largest showcase for military technology. The main attraction was a full-scale mock-up of its ops center, running simulations ranging from natural disasters to political coups.

And right now they just so happen to be revamping their website. If you google them, you get:

SCL - Strategic Communication laboritories
Strategic Communication Laboratories is upgrading their web presence to improve security and accessibility. We apologise for the temporary disruption of ...

[anothershamus]

Well done all! I want to thank Jeff for keeping the site active and giving all of us a forum for discussing this situation. Try to keep your information clean.

I'm glad that this thread has generated so much along the lines of information exchange. It's a really good to have a secondary line of news with all the folks looking at their own sites and real life and posting information here.

I do think it's only a good drill, but in the instance that it is a real pandemic, this is where I would check first to find out what's going on.

No flu here, although one of my friends just got back (yesterday) from Cancun. I haven't been around, or spoken to him, so I don't know if he is allowed into the country yet or not. I have travel plans for Santa Fe late in the week and I hope there are no travel restrictions, and I will take my flu preventative. (wellness tablets from Source Natural)

best to all and keep posting.

[lightningBugout]

If it does not happen this time, it *will* happen another.

So? It's inevitable that at some time the earth will get hit by a big-ass asteroid, too.

So I should panic?

I'm with Chlamor on this one.

You can panic if you like, I was just pointing out that being reactionary in the direction of calling it all a manufactured panic because you mistrust the PTB might get in the way of sifting out the bullshit while still protecting your ass from a killer bug that comes to town sometime next week.

The inevitability that a big asteroid will hit the earth takes place on a non-human time scale - it probably won't hit in our lifetimes. Based on 20th c. history, the probability of a global flu pandemic is high within our lifetimes. Or Ebola or Marsberg or Legionnaires or Hanta at slightly smaller scales.

[geogeo]

I just wanted to remind people of the number 11 embedded in "H1N1".

Please remind me how ridiculous any numerological connection with any of this. Unless god is us.

[tazmic]

Pandemic 2!

Hmm, the outbreak starts in mexico?

[ninakat]

Pandemic 2!

Hmm, the outbreak starts in mexico?

Description: Customize your disease and wipe out the population!
Player: You are player number 5020718

Lovely.

Kidz play the darndest games, don't they?

[ninakat]

Pandemic Monitoring System
http://www.idemc.org/

[LilyPatToo]

Has anyone seen any mention of possible (perhaps partial?) immunity to this virus in folks who were exposed to that bad batch of swine flu vaccine back in the 70's? IIRC, it was sent out with live viruses in it, instead of killed ones. I got a dose and it made me extremely ill.

My Dad survived the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic as a child and he always believed that it was the immunity he got from it that allowed him to stay well through a terrible flu epidemic in the 50's. Whatever it was that kept him on his feet, it was a good thing, since my mother, my sister and I were all stricken. I have dim memories of him setting up old Army cots in our living room for us, so that he could keep an eye on all of us at once. Mum finally had to be hospitalized and nearly died. If we hadn't had him to nurse us, I might not be sitting here typing this today.

LilyPat

[anothershamus]

How did these guys know what was coming?

Panasonic to fly home workers' families over bird flu fears

Feb 9, 2009

TOKYO (AFP) — Panasonic Corp. has ordered Japanese employees in some foreign countries to send their families home to Japan in preparation for a possible bird flu pandemic, a spokesman said Tuesday.

Family members of Japanese employees in parts of Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Russia, former Soviet states and Latin America will fly back to Japan by the end of September, Panasonic spokesman Akira Kadota said.

The firm decided to take the rare measure "well ahead of possible confusion at the outbreak of a global pandemic," he said.

Eight people have contracted the H5N1 bird flu virus in China alone this year -- five of whom died.

"The bird flu cases reported so far are infections from bird to human, but once an infection between human beings is reported, things can get chaotic with many other companies trying to bring back their employees," Kadota said.

"We wanted to take action early before it gets difficult to book flight tickets," he said.

The company did not say how many family members would return to Japan. Employees and their families in North America, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore will not be affected.

The H5N1 strain of the virus that is most dangerous to humans first emerged in Asia in 2003 and has since caused nearly 250 deaths, according to World Health Organisation figures.

Bird flu, or avian influenza, kills mainly birds but scientists fear it could mutate to jump from human to human, sparking a global pandemic.

Panasonic said last week it was cutting 15,000 jobs and closing dozens of plants worldwide as it braces to fall deep in the red due to the global economic crisis.

Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.

From AFP: link here to whole story:
More »
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jFX14blXVvoh4Q3z6XtKKFeydIug

[posting tulpa]

This is starting to get mildly alarming.

The pace and the reach is remarkable.

UK crew member in hospital after Mexico flight

Sat Apr 25, 2009

LONDON (Reuters) - A British Airways cabin crew member was taken to a London hospital as a precaution after developing flu-like symptoms on a flight from Mexico City, the airline said on Saturday.

It was the first such reported precautionary measure in Britain since the emergence of a new flu strain that has killed up to 68 people in Mexico. It has also infected at least 11 people in the United States. The man has undergone tests, but the results are not expected back until at least Sunday. No other crew members or passengers on the BA242 flight into Heathrow airport were detained.

"He has flu-like symptoms and is responding well to treatment," a hospital spokesman said in a statement.

"The patient was admitted directly to a side room and the hospital is scrupulously following infection control procedures to ensure there is no risk to any other individual in the hospital."

...


http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/i ... SQ20090425

I agree, and my personal quandry is how to explain the geographical dispersal. I mean I understand TX Cali and Az, but NY?

an unheartfelt thankyou to who ever posted the Felony Vaccination Evasion piece. Ok now I'm worried. Its one thing to have a choice.

[Cosmic Cowbell]

I agree, and my personal quandry is how to explain the geographical dispersal. I mean I understand TX Cali and Az, but NY?

Spring Break...

[professorpan]

I agree, and my personal quandry is how to explain the geographical dispersal. I mean I understand TX Cali and Az, but NY?

Simple answer: airplanes.

[geogeo]

The big question in the media today appears to be why Mexicans are dying, possibly up to 10% of infected (i.e. = to SARS), yet elsewhere folks are hardly even being hospitalized.

Pissbly answer: It's a designer virus bio-engineered for Mexicans. In light of threats to the US, extremists on the Right might very easily benefit from this. Getting that border control they want, for example! could this be the long-feared bioweapon engineered for a certain genotype? We need another, convenient, explanation, and quick.

[Jeff]

We need another, convenient, explanation, and quick.

It's hard not to think that thought, isn't it? I'm not leaping to that conclusion just yet, but it's a tragedy we can't dismiss it out of hand.