“Mexican” Swine Flu Confirmed In Eleven States
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama pledged “great vigilance” in confronting the swine flu outbreak Wednesday night as it spread coast to coast across the U.S. The outbreak hit 11 states and closed schools amid confirmation of the first U.S. death — a Mexican toddler who visited Texas with his family — and the confinement of dozens of Marines after one came down with the disease in California.
Some 100 schools were closed, and more might need to be shut down temporarily, Obama said, declaring, “This is obviously a very serious situation.” The total confirmed cases in the U.S. rose to nearly 100, with many more suspected.
He spoke just hours after the Geneva-based World Health Organization, a United Nations agency, sounded its own ominous alarm, raising its alert level to one notch below a full-fledged global pandemic. Said WHO Director General Margaret Chan: “It really is all of humanity that is under threat during a pandemic.”
Dr. Richard Besser, acting chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in Atlanta there were confirmed cases in ten states, including 51 in New York, 16 in Texas and 14 in California. The CDC counted scattered cases in Kansas, Massachusetts , Michigan, Arizona, Indiana, Nevada and Ohio.
State officials in Maine said laboratory tests had confirmed three cases in that state, not yet included in the CDC count.
Also, Illinois officials cited nine “likely cases,” most of them in the Chicago area, and three schools were shut down.
And the Pentagon said a Marine at the Twentynine Palms base in California had been confirmed to be ill with swine flu and was isolated, along with his roommate. A Marine spokesman at the Pentagon, Maj. David Nevers, said the sick Marine was doing well and his condition continued to improve. Nevers said about 30 others who had been in contact with the sick Marine would be held apart for five days as well as to see if they show symptoms.
In Mexico, where the flu is believed to have originated, officials said Wednesday that the disease was now suspected in 168 deaths, and nearly 2,500 illnesses.
Despite calls from many U.S. lawmakers for tightening controls over the Mexico-US border, Obama ruled out that option, even though the swine flu outbreak has been at its most virulent and may have begun there.
At a prime-time news conference on his 100th day in office, Obama said he would heed the advice of health officials, to whom blocking the border “would be akin to closing the barn door after the horses are out, because we already have cases here in the United States.”
Instead, he said his administration had ramped up screening efforts and made sure needed medical supplies were on hand. “The key now is to just make sure we are maintaining great vigilance, that everybody responds appropriately when cases do come up. And individual families start taking very sensible precautions that can make a huge difference.”
He praised the Bush administration for making preparations for such a crisis, including stockpiling 50 million doses of antiviral medications.
“Because this is a new strain, we have to be cautious,” Obama said. “If this was a strain we were familiar with, then I think we wouldn’t see the kind of alert levels that we’re seeing, for instance, with the World Health Organization.”
Earlier, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said, “Closing our nation’s borders is not merited here.”
“This virus is already in the United States. Any containment theory … is really moot at this time,” Napolitano said.
In fact, customs agents have delayed 49 people at the border because of flulike symptoms and 41 of those have been cleared so far. Test results on the other eight were not complete.
Earlier Wednesday, Obama offered “my thoughts and prayers” to the family of a nearly two-year-old Mexican boy who died in Houston, the first confirmed U.S. fatality among more than five dozen infections. Health officials in Texas said the child had traveled with his family from Mexico to Brownsville on April 4 and had been sick for five days before being hospitalized there. He then was brought to Houston where he died Monday night.
Texas called off all public high school athletic and academic competitions at least until May 11 due to the outbreak.
The Senate’s top Republican said the spread was a “very worrisome situation and we’re all following it very closely.” Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Republicans “stand ready to closely work with the administration to protect the American people as this situation unfolds.”
Laboratory testing showed the new virus was treatable by the anti-flu drugs Tamiflu and Relenza, and the first shipments from a federal stockpile arrived Wednesday in New York City and several other locations. The government was shipping to states enough medication to treat 11 million people as a precaution. All states should get their share by May 3.
No shortages had been reported — there was plenty in regular pharmacies, federal health officials said.
A pandemic is an epidemic that has expanded globally. The swine flu has now been reported on four continents.
Germany and Austria became the latest countries to report infections. Germany reported four cases on Wednesday, Austria one case.
New Zealand’s total rose to 14. Britain had earlier reported five cases, Spain 10. There were 19 cases in Canada and two in Israel.
The disease is not spread by eating pork and U.S. officials appeared to go out of their way on Wednesday to not call the strain “swine flu.” Obama called the bug the “H1N1 virus,” both in a morning statement and at his news conference, and other administration officials followed his lead.
Of particular concern were the cases in New York City.
Health officials said the number of confirmed swine flu cases in New York had risen to 51, and tests were under way on the first three probable cases outside New York City.
City Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden said Wednesday all those with confirmed cases were recovering, including a 19-month-old baby and a young woman who were hospitalized.
Several schools were closed in New York, many more in Texas. Some 53,000 students were affected in Texas.
Of the school closings, former Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, on her first full day on the job as health and human services secretary, said while prudent, they also cause “a large ripple effect.”
“What happens to the parents? Where do those children go? Do you close the day care center if a younger sibling is there?” Sebelius asked at a briefing for reporters.
Obama noted he had asked Congress for $1.5 billion in emergency funds to help build more drug stockpiles and monitor future cases, as well as help international efforts to avoid a full-fledged pandemic, an epidemic that spreads widely across the globe.(AP)
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Actually the flu is in the vaccine. They need to scare you into taking the vaccine.
Now I read the flu is part swine, part human and part bird. Doesnt that strike anyone of being very odd.
How do you get a mixture?
Also why does the flu take 2-5 days to show symptoms?
Perhaps time for someone to travel and spread it.
I also know a doctor, who said you cant get the flu from birds.
I have a link saying the same thing, but my puter broke.
Also the way to get rid of the flu is to take nothing that inhibits the body from heating up.
The heating is what kills the virus. Not some vaccine or whatever.
It is odd. The toddler was sick on april 4th and its now the 30th? Why are the parents or other family members not infected if it is spread so easily? Some of the things just don’t add up IMO.
Ji, that is very normal for the symptoms to appear 2-3 days after catching any flue. What is abnormal here is that the symptoms last 7-9 days.
Why is this pandemic dangerous for Obambi? Backlash against mass transit plans. A very conservative former Med School Prof and still close to one of his students a now Bio-Terrorism Expert has told me that it is actually being grossly under reported. The 3 day lag time to get results from CDC are keeping hundreds of cases out of the news.
This was sent to me and is supposed to be on a Facebook profile …
People once said that a black man would be president when pigs flew … in the first 100 days, swine flu
Hahahaha….it is on my FB profile. Probably other’s too.
Hahahaha….it is on my FB profile. Probably other’s too.
Except mine says when pigs flew…100 days in and pigs flu
THEY HAVENT DONE A GODAM THING, nipo WONT CLOSE THE BORDER, THAT EVIL DIKE BITCH.
“Despite calls from many U.S. lawmakers for tightening controls over the Mexico-US border, Obama ruled out that option, even though the swine flu outbreak has been at its most virulent and may have begun there.”
Idiot. I hate hussein, that kenyan POS. The stupidity of our leftist government scares me.
Let me know when the people who matter have caught this and are dying slow miserable deaths and calling for forgiveness.
FLEE! FLEE FOR YOUR LIVES!!!!! AHHHHHHHH
Run Away! Run Away!
I was just shown this video. PLEASE watch it, it is VERY IMPORTAND!!!!!
And we need to figure out where our ANGER needs to be pointed. I am so pissed right now…Please tell me what needs to be done, I’m at a Loss here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBeKB7aKzOs&feature=related
If that makes you angry, try reading this:
CDC to mix avian, human flu viruses in pandemic study
http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/panflu/news/jan1404hybrids.html
Also, take a look at this quote and excerpt from Dr. Orly Taitz: “I am also concerned that they are using current flu in Mexico as an excuse to institute Martial law and quash any Constitutional rights and freedoms we still have.”
http://www.orlytaitzesq.com/blog1/?p=499
I don’t believe the man is telling the truth at the end of the video he trys to sell his product, he is a dentist not a real viroligist. Read the coments below the clip.
He is in for some “Slanderous” Lawsuits…
Naming names like that.
Damnit to hell.I try and try to believe our large corperation’s and gov. work only for our good when shit like this pops up.No wonder we all end up being consperiacy theorist…..Good link PatriotofPast..
WOW, that Orly article is insightful. Also if mexico collapses we will bail them out giving the dims millions more in votes.
Add Minnesota to the list, first confirmed case closes schools in Cold Spring.
I knew the mexicans would be the death of the usa. Now theyve brung this nasty virus up here along with there nasty asses and folks are getting sick.Way to go government for letting them start coming up here.
Notice all the salomanilla taints in our food industry since the mexicans have taken over working the fields? They just piss and shit in the fields and not wash their hands. You should see what they do to a house as they are building it, those nice garden tubs in the new construction houses? They shit in those too as well as in the corner, piss in empty drink bottles and leave them laying around or just pissing in the corner of the home.
Feds said today of their concern this would cause a ‘racist’ backlash against mexicans
Indio High School and Indio Teen center here in Southern California just closed, for a week, because a young girl is suspected of having the swine-flu. My daughter and wife are now officially scared even though we are far away.
A local hospital, that serves an enormous area of Southern California, has only a couple of isolation rooms (infectious disease containment rooms). The ones they have are always full with TB patients from you know where. Oh, and the HUGE, and growing, gay population in Palm Springs (San Francisco South) has recently had a big spike in Syphilis and AID’s cases taking up space and endangering the Nurses and Doctors.
When all of this is History, and you want to have a vacation out here, skip Palm Springs altogether. Vacation in Palm Desert. It’s about 10 miles to the west, not owned by the Indian Tribes, is nicer, newer, with better shopping and a more Conservative populace. Palm Springs is an absolute Leftist Nirvana Sewer now.
“It’s about 10 miles to the west” should say “east”.
It’s all a scam folk’s.I just heard Rush say the virus is not airborne,but is spread by droplets.Do yourself a favor and skip the silly little mask.
I’m probably going to get some grief for this post, BUT - what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. Viruses have been mutating and evolving for longer than man has been on this Earth. Even if they perfect a vaccine for this, by next year it may have evolved into something different. I don’t think aviators oxygen masks will start dissolving as in the “Andromedea Strain”, but who knows? IMHO, the ones most at risk are people who have tried to eliminate “germs” from their environment, or insist that doctors prescribe every sort of antibiotic for any sniffle or cough they or their kids develope. Since my parents had no problem with us playing baseball in a pasture field covered with ‘cow patties’ or tasting ‘dirt pies’ we made, I hope we ingested enough of these natural antibiotics to protect us and our offspring
Licking the carpet as you speak. Good idea.
(it is true)