Bad News On The Swine Flu Front

A cat has come down with it:

The 13-year-old cat apparently caught the virus from one of the people living in the house, the group said in a statement. It has recovered and does not appear to have infected anyone or anything else.

If it can mutate to do that, it may be able to mutate to do nastier things. Hope the vaccines can keep up.

8 thoughts on “Bad News On The Swine Flu Front”

  1. It mutated to cats? Great, there are only about 30 million stray cats in the country to help spread it around. If this then mutates to the fleas in cats, it could be the next plague, right?

    Where’s ALF when we need him?

  2. As far as I’m concerned, there are two things to note here. First, human flu has probably spread to cats before. Nobody cared then.

    Second, from reading about the 1918 flu, a key indicator of future trouble seems to be pockets of high mortality flu. There were a number of clusters of higher lethality flu (with death rates up to say, 10% from those that reported sick) throughout the summer of 1918 (the real deal hit around September through November and then came back a few times through 1921 or so). For what its worth, I don’t think we’ve seen anything like that with the current swine flu except possibly for the original Mexico source.

    Hopefully that means that we’ll see a few waves of highly infectious but usually mild flu, and then it’ll vanish or fade into the background.

  3. The avian flu of a few years ago could infect cats. I remember a story of tigers at a zoo in SE Asia coming down with it.

    This recent event says less about the flu than it does about variability in the susceptibility among cats. The virus need not have mutated at all for some cats to have become infected.

  4. McGehee,
    Or, was it that the TV show with David Carradine, about the martial arts monk in the old west.

    Wo Fat was the Chinese guy on Hawaii Five-O.

    (who was actually played by a guy with a kinda Vietnamese sounding name, Khigh Dheigh, who was neither Vietnamese or Chinese)

    What was the topic again?

    Oh yeah, sick cats who starred in Chinese TV shows.

  5. You would be much better off worrying about being killed in an auto accident and taking steps to mitigate it.

    Ordinary flu kills about 5000 per year in the USA. Even with swine flu, death rates from flu are running at the same rate, this year, as any other year. Flu vaccines are typically effective, only, every one out of seven years that they are administered. That is how often the right vaccine is distributed for that year’s flu season. It is highly unlikely that swine flu vaccine will be the right vaccine for the flu virus that strikes this season.

    If you still want to worry about flu; the best preventatives are exercise, sunshine, sleep, wash your hands and don’t touch your face.

  6. Well, if it wasn’t the guy from “Five-O” my next guess was gonna be that cheesy politico-Western with Jane Fonda and Lee Marvin’s drunken horse.

    Not enough syllables, though.

  7. It is said that the earth is covered by a cloud which looks like the face of Stan; it might mean the world is going to the judgment day. I think it could be nonsense to the people without religious faith, but there is another cloud which is more threatening to the mass. That is the cloud of H1N1 flu.
    The cloud is now in the sky over New York and everywhere in this world. And the tips of how to against the flu became the top-line and nominated passage. Besides the threatening of H1N1 flu, the fall is coming and it is a flu season, so the health topic is now hot. The health care center could be crowed in this season. And the getting vaccinated is strongly suggested to be put at the to-do list. It is said that the flu vaccine could get the flu out of your way and it could be got from the health care center provider, local clinic or health department. I think the frequently exercises should be strongly suggested, too. If you do exercises every day, such as running, going to the gym, swimming and so on, your body could be stronger. I think the defense in the inner part of our body could be more effective than the vaccine.

Comments are closed.