[Marxism] Flu map

[Joaquin Bustelo]

One of the better resources is following the flu pandemic is a map being
made, apparently by volunteers, that shows the number of cases, deaths and
their status -- "suspected" (in other words, where the classification as
H1N1 swine flu is based on a clinical diagnosis) or "confirmed" (where virus
samples from the patient have been subjected to PCR DNA testing and found to
be this specific strain). A great feature is that each and every item has a
source reference attached to it that pops up when you click the marker.

That map is here:

http://h1n1maps.com/

And here is a map of colleges and universities in the US *officially*
reporting swine flu cases: 
<http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&ll=39.571822,-95.625&spn
=36.948082,67.851563&z=4&msid=109878326824967605990.000468a80b7ca216e4d3a>

I was interested to learn that Harvard's dental school had been completely
shut down due to the epidemic, both the school and the clinic, and both the
school of public health and the med school were shut down Thursday night but
for shorter periods, with both scheduled to reopen sometime this coming
week.

One woulda thought that someone who spent 8 hours on Friday in a newsroom
almost completely focused on the swine flue epidemic would have been exposed
to the news about Harvard, but somehow I missed it. 

A couple of more tidbits about the epidemic.

Mexican officials have been saying since last Sunday that the number of
cases is tapering off. If this were *actually* true, don't you think the
government would have released the figures of suspected cases and deaths in
such cases, instead of trying to pull the wool over people's eyes by
suddenly and without explanation switching to only talking about
DNA-test-confirmed cases?

And if the *substance*  of saying the number of cases was winding down were
*actually* true, do you think President Calderon would have ordered
everything in the country except essential services to shut down?

Adding further to the confusion about the spread of the epidemic is the
category of "likely" or "probable" cases. These are clinically diagnosed
cases for which a quicker and less expensive laboratory test have been done,
and come out negative for the more common types of flu.

And as if that weren't enough, scientists quoted in press reports and posts
on private medical list servers say that none of the flu tests are
conclusive in the negative: a positive result means you certainly DO have
it, unless the sample was contaminated. But a negative result doesn't mean
you certainly DON'T have it. 

False negatives are possible even in acute cases, and it is known that once
a patient has begun to recover or received anti-viral drugs, the test is
much more likely to come out negative.

Unfortunately, there is nowhere near enough data carefully collected to
suggest what the rate of false negatives might be, but it is believed to be
significant.

Joaquin