In the absence of any time to write a proper post, some links:
The Good
The New York Times reports the absence of any severe side effects during the first round of injections in H1N1 vaccination trials.
Next up, first-round trial injections for kids and then pregnant women.
The Bad
As college students fill up dorms, swine flu cases on campuses are rising fairly quickly, as you might expect.
The Somewhat Confusing
If you didn’t catch Monday’s White House H1N1 report, it estimated one U.S. scenario of 30% to 50% of the population infected with 30,000 to 90,000 deaths.
Some people, understandably, freaked out.
Now the CDC has stated that scenario isn’t very likely.
What are your opinions on this? As an asthmatic, it scares me that there are case of swine that go straight to the lungs:
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/08/29/WHO-warns-of-severe-swine-flu-reports/UPI-15861251577128/
Hi Robert, and thanks for the link. I hadn’t read that bit of information yet, although back in July some research was published on how H1N1 penetrates deeper into the lungs than seasonal flu:
http://io9.com/5307111/how-swine-flu-works-and-why-it-kills
I’m (cautiously) scared myself, since this seems to be hitting children most, and it’s my 10 year-old that has asthma. So far, what we’ve done is increase the strength of her Flovent for maintenance, take her in for a lung check-up right before school started last week, and she’ll be getting her seasonal flu shot as soon as humanly possible. And assuming the swine flu vaccine gets here on time and is deemed safe, she’ll be getting that as well.
Beyond that, I’m trying to keep her overall health good and hoping this strain doesn’t build up a resistance to Tamiflu.
I’m late to this thread but am concerned about the latest news of H1N1 being severely respiratory, lower respiratory, and possibly developing into pneumonia.
My son is a homebound student this semester because of H1N1. He’s asthmatic, has mild CP, catches everything that goes around, etc.
We’ve had our seasonal flu vaccines and are being cautious about any outings in the community. It’s tough, but only temporary until he’s fully vaccinated and protected against H1N1 which is probably December.
Marcia
Just checked on Flu.gov and there are 3 clinics at schools opening up for vaccinations during the last week of this month. I am sure there will be more posted. Our Pulmonologist still does not have the vaccine in. Anyone else have their doctors with it available yet?
No H1N1 vaccine here yet, and there’s a newspaper story today about it (this first wave, anyway) peaking here.
What timing, huh?