April 29, 2009

Swine flu death in Texas

The first US swine flu death has been confirmed in Houston, Texas. The unfortunate victim was a toddler.

A baby in Texas has died of the H1N1 flu strain, the first confirmed death outside Mexico from a virus which health officials fear could cause a pandemic as it spread to two more countries in Europe. Nearly a week after the threat emerged in Mexico, where up to 159 people have died, a U.S. official said on Wednesday a 23-month-old had died in the state bordering Mexico. A health official said the baby was Mexican and was in the United States for medical treatment.
Anyone care to guess as to how long before Texas is overrun with swine flu Mexican flu - wait, we can't even decide what the hell to call this, how do we think we're going to manage it?

We're a week into knowing this whatever we're calling it for the next couple of hours might be pretty serious, and now we have evidence that someone brought a sick kid into the US from the disease hotbed, knowing they were sick, but the US hasn't yet sealed its borders.  Even dumb little me knows that when you've got someone sick in a house, you isolate them from the rest of the family and wipe down with bleach anything they may have touched - why this isn't being implemented on a global level is stunning. 

Don't get me wrong, I don't blame the parents for seeking medical care for their kid - doing whatever it takes to try to help your child is the morally correct thing to do on the part of the parents.  The US government is 100% to blame if even one US citizen gets sick from exposure to this kid - if the government wants to play mommy to all of us, they'd better be ready to protect us from the cooties from the kid down the street.

Posted by: Alice H at 09:10 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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