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Swine flu confirmed on PAX showfloor
Author: Joe MartinPublished: 9th September 2009
Reports of swine flu have now been confirmed on the show floor of the Penny Arcade Expo - run for your lives.
The H1N1 virus, commonly known as swine flu, has been classified as a pandemic since it first emerged in Mexico a few months ago and, while the vast majority of sufferers make a quick recovery with the aid of anti-virals, doctors urge caution when dealing with the potentially fatal virus.
"Just heard of our first test-confirmed swine flu case at the show. PLEASE if you feel symptoms (fever, etc) go to the doctor," said the official PAX twitter account this morning, alerting the 60,000+ attendees at the show to the problem.
"This is the real thing. If you get this number of people together in this close a proximity it is the perfect storm for these kind of wild fire virus spreads," Penny Arcade's Robert Khoo told Kotaku. "We just want to make sure everyone is informed."
At least one case has been confirmed by a doctor, with the patient apparently being a developer from a Boston-based studio.
The symptoms for swine flu include usual flu-like symptoms, including a sore throat, runny nose, body aches and headache as well as diarrhoea and vomiting. More information is available on the CDC website, so while we encourage discussion in the forums please don't go expecting or issuing medical advice in the comments thread - seek proper medical advice instead, ideally minimising contact with others at the same time.
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but really. wow, i'm kinda surprised
I second this statement. If you think you have Swine Flu, DO NOT LEAVE YOUR HOUSE! Even for the anti-virals, get a friend to go to the local distribution centre to get your TamiFlu.
if you're american.... well... I hope you have insurance ;-P
But yeah this is blatantly a ploy to wipe out the games industry ;)
That's because the media is bored with it, just like how they got bored of Afganistan several years ago and every other thing that goes on that the media gets bored of so stops reporting.
Newspapers and television news don't exist to report what they want to, they exist to report what sells (with the possible exception of the BBC). You can't blame them for giving their consumers what they want....that's how a business works.
symptoms are thought to include random mumbling
This is it exactly.
If you look at the (UK) numbers, swine flu isn't even that serious. It's fairly mild. You have to be already immunocompromised to get sick enough to die from it. The "normal" fatality rate in the UK from flu every year in the UK is somewhere between 16,000 and 20,000 depending on where you ask. How many has swine flu killed? In the UK, a couple of hundred. Worldwide... the W.H.O say that five days ago worldwide fatalities from swine flu topped 2800 (2837, to be exact). "Potentially fatal"... yes, but crossing the road is potentially fatal. Eating is potentially fatal - you could choke on your food! The anti-flu drugs do little to help, really only reducing the symptomatic period by "up to" 24 hours. Lemsip, hot tea and bed rest can do that!
Finally, I understand that your picture caption may be tongue-in-cheek, but there are people out there who would read it and take its advice literally. Therefore I find it in extremely poor taste, possibly even dangerous.