Social distancing now - just stay home this month

Portland is a well-studied city, when it comes to studies as to how contagious diseases spread. One thing we know is that social distancing works, and works far better at the beginning of an epidemic. That's confirmed by another study, and by fall-off in common flu cases after 9/11 and detailed statistically here.

It's probably reached Oregon now, with a Portland case awaiting final confirmation, now considered 'probable' by CDC guidelines.

Here's today's WSJ flu blog.

Veratect swine flu surveillance

http://twitter.com/veratect is a Twitter feed from Veratect, which also offers a blog explaining their surveillance of communicable diseases.

Swine Flu Maps and Data

HOWTO, thorough hand washing:
1 Wet hands
2 Apply liquid or foam (preferred) soap
3 Scrub for at least 20 seconds. SCRUBBING IS THE MOST EFFECTIVE STEP HERE; DON'T SKIP OR CUT THIS SHORT.
4 Rinse thoroughly
5 Dry with paper towels
6 Pull one more paper towel from the dispenser, use that to open bathroom door. Since flu viruses can survive several days on dry surfaces, and be passed hand-to-hand-to-hand even if the person in the middle does not catch the flu, this step is also important.

tinyurl.com/porcineinfluenza No dot = fatal case.

WHO: Influenza-like illness in the United States and Mexico

24 April 2009 -- The United States Government has reported seven confirmed human cases of Swine Influenza A/H1N1 in the USA (five in California and two in Texas) and nine suspect cases. All seven confirmed cases had mild Influenza-Like Illness (ILI), with only one requiring brief hospitalization. No deaths have been reported.

The Government of Mexico has reported three separate events. In the Federal District of Mexico, surveillance began picking up cases of ILI starting 18 March. The number of cases has risen steadily through April and as of 23 April there are now more than 854 cases of pneumonia from the capital. Of those, 59 have died. In San Luis Potosi, in central Mexico, 24 cases of ILI, with three deaths, have been reported. And from Mexicali, near the border with the United States, four cases of ILI, with no deaths, have been reported.

Of the Mexican cases, 18 have been laboratory confirmed in Canada as Swine Influenza A/H1N1, while 12 of those are genetically identical to the Swine Influenza A/H1N1 viruses from California.

The majority of these cases have occurred in otherwise healthy young adults. Influenza normally affects the very young and the very old, but these age groups have not been heavily affected in Mexico.

Because there are human cases associated with an animal influenza virus, and because of the geographical spread of multiple community outbreaks, plus the somewhat unusual age groups affected, these events are of high concern.

CDC web page

http://darwin.zoology.gla.ac.uk/~rpage/flu/ contains a timeline.