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"The declaration that Obama signed late Friday authorized Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to bypass federal rules so health officials can respond more quickly to the outbreak, which has killed more than 1,000 people in the United States.
The goal is to remove bureaucratic roadblocks and make it easier for sick people to seek treatment and medical providers to provide it immediately. That could mean fewer hurdles involving Medicare, Medicaid or health privacy regulations."
I'd still like someone tell me what these roadblocks are that are currently preventing anybody from getting treatment (other than the fact that there may not be any vaccine )
There is no cure, there's only prevention.
As for "roadblocks" - the conspiracy press is full of literal roadbock stories - Obama's flying monkeys checking to be sure you got your shot, dragging you out of your car and off to FEMA camp if your arm is virgin ("any day now")
This one is great -- "THE DEATH OF LIBERTY: THE FINAL SCENE UNFOLDS" -- cant link to it even though "OUR REPUBLIC IS DANGLING BY A THREAD" because it wants $25.
"He's telling us that he's been contacted by active duty State trooper friends from several states who are all telling him of plans to erect roadblocks at key places along interstate highways to force all cars to go single file up to barricades where you will be given a "choice": be vaccinated on the spot and fitted with a stainless steel wrist bracelet containing an RFID chip with your medical history showing you've received the vaccine, or be put on a bus and taken to a FEMA Quarantine Camp."
Love it... I have to get into that 'FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SEND YOUR DONATIONS NOW" line of work, I swear.
What is untrue about using isolation as a means to prevent illness from being spread? Have you never isolated a sick child from his/her siblings to prevent the whole family from getting ill? Doesn't the pediatrician office you work in have separate sick/well waiting rooms? Considering that each person shedding a virus can come in contact with dozens of others before he/she shows signs of the flu, why wouldn't it be considered smart to have isolated those with this virus while the outbreak was still in its infancy?
Instead, we have 1,000 people killed, an overdue H1N1 vaccination, and a delayed seasonal flu vaccine. Doesn't seem to have been handled so "expertly"
Isolation is one tool, yes. At my office, we are telling people to keep their kids at home until the fever has been gone for 24 hrs. w/o fever reducing meds, as is the CDC recommendation. However, people with the flu are contagious for a day (at least) before they have any symptoms, and may be contagious long after the fever has subsided and they go back to school/work. Plus, people do live in households, and you can't isolate them from their families.
"The declaration that Obama signed late Friday authorized Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to bypass federal rules so health officials can respond more quickly to the outbreak, which has killed more than 1,000 people in the United States.
The goal is to remove bureaucratic roadblocks and make it easier for sick people to seek treatment and medical providers to provide it immediately. That could mean fewer hurdles involving Medicare, Medicaid or health privacy regulations."
I'd still like someone tell me what these roadblocks are that are currently preventing anybody from getting treatment (other than the fact that there may not be any vaccine )
Vaccine is not treatment, it's prevention.
I don't work with Medicare, and very little with Medicaid, so I'm not sure what roadblocks they have. Perhaps it means medicare not wanting every little "i" dotted and every little "t" crossed for a diagnosis to be made, so that it is easier to prescribe Tamilfu. Just a guess. Maybe someone who works with Medicare will respond.
For one thing, the emergency declaration is not going to send troops into the streets. This:
The proclamation, which Obama signed on Friday night, will make it easier for U.S. medical facilities to handle a surge in flu patients by allowing the waiver of some requirements of Medicare, Medicaid and other federal health insurance programs as needed, the White House said in a statement.
Obama Declares Swine Flu A National Emergency : NPR (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=114132895 - broken link)
is what the proclamation means.
As regards the vaccine, read this:
The flu virus has to be grown in chicken eggs, and the yield hasn't been as high as was initially hoped, CDC officials explained. "Even if you yell at them, they don't grow faster," Frieden said.
This: Originally Posted by fopt65
No. If we were able to isolate those with the virus and prevent its spread, there would be no epidemic. We had the chance and the President refused to consider it, hence now the level 6 pandemic.
is completely untrue. Obama was following the World Health Organization's recommendations.
Why is it that some posters on CD, with no health care background whatsoever, think they know more than these people who have spent their careers studying this stuff? We knew a pandemic was actually overdue, we just didn't know when it would come. A few years ago, we thought it would be the bird flu, but that didn't happen. Now, we've got Swine Flu, and it's happening.
Let's wait and see. The article is a secondary source. Go straight to the horse's mouth, the laws and executive orders relating to national emergencies. He may go that far, to essentially a dictatorship, he may not. But he certainly wouldn't say he was declaring a national emergency to give himself the dictatorial powers associated with that, would he?
I see people witing in line near some kind of building and a guy holding a sign. Where is this? When is this? What are they lined up for? How many people showed up? Are they waiting because of a shortage of whatever it is they're waiting for or lack of people working to attend to them? This picture does not speak a thousand words, by a long shot.
Good question! I'm not sure now whether it was a poster or some right-wing blogger talking about all the long waits for medical care in the UK who then put up an unidentified picture that was actually of people waiting in line to get into the gallery for a session of the House of Commons. There were of course plenty of posters who put up a picture of a 1997 Promise Keepers rally as supposed evidence that 1.2 million people had attended FOX's 912DC astroturf rally. Scruples are like hen's teeth for some...it always pays to inquire.
Isolation is one tool, yes. At my office, we are telling people to keep their kids at home until the fever has been gone for 24 hrs. w/o fever reducing meds, as is the CDC recommendation. However, people with the flu are contagious for a day (at least) before they have any symptoms, and may be contagious long after the fever has subsided and they go back to school/work. Plus, people do live in households, and you can't isolate them from their families.
I think the US handled this outbreak horribly. Thank God it isn't a more deadly virus or we'd really be in trouble. Mexico did get aggressive with shutting down businesses and helping to prevent the further spread of the virus. China also did a better job in containing it than we did.
Hopefully this is a wake up call to the CDC and our national defense. I'm sure Al Queda is looking at our poor response and licking their lips.
So why doesn't this happen every year, and why aren't we always considered to be in a "pandemic" situation since the normal strains of influenza kill millions of people every year throughout the world. The media and the government has blown this whole thing way out of proportion. They were calling this thing a pandemic before it was even an epidemic. And now, the local media is saying they aren't even testing for H1N1 anymore because it is so similar to the normal flu. So I guess that means everytime someone catches the flu this year it will be called H1N1. I'm sorry folks, but I hope you aren't buying into the hype surrounding this nonsense. This is the exact same thing they tried to pull with the Avian flu only this time, far more Americans bought it hook, line, and sinker. We are talking about the flu here people, not small pox. The overwhelming majority of people who catch it will simply be sick, just like any other flu season. There will be deaths either directly or indirectly from the flu, but that is absolutely normal. And thus far, this supposed new strain hasn't caused enough trouble to be getting all the attention it has. We don't hear this sort of hype from the media about the normal flu, and it is a much more dangerous animal if you look into the world wide stats. And these stats are done yearly! I don't care if Obama has declared this an emergency, it's really no skin off my nose. But what I am getting sick of is the massive media scare campaign that has been waged since this thing first popped up.
Excellent post and so true! I had my MIL at the doctor's office yesterday for her check-up. I talked to him about the flu shots. It was funny how he hesitated about the H1N1 and said how the regular flu kills alot more people and that he will probably get the shot since he works with sick people so much. BTW, his office and the other office at a different location they have, did not have the regular flu shots in. I told him how I had read stories on folks getting the regular flu shot had adverse reactions and ended up paralyzed, etc. He said well some do have a reaction to it but that is very, very rare. I generally get the flu shot every year; this year I am very hesitant.
I think the US handled this outbreak horribly. Thank God it isn't a more deadly virus or we'd really be in trouble. Mexico did get aggressive with shutting down businesses and helping to prevent the further spread of the virus. China also did a better job in containing it than we did.
Hopefully this is a wake up call to the CDC and our national defense. I'm sure Al Queda is looking at our poor response and licking their lips.
The US followed all the World Health Organization protocols. I don't know that Mexico or China really contained the virus any better than we did.
According to this map, China has had 31,000 cases, and Mexico has not done a case count.
I'm sure we've had over 31,000 cases in the US. Its thought over 1 million people in NYC alone have gotten the H1N1 virus.
WHO protocols IMHO were wrong in an instance where there was no vaccine. Allowing people sick with a new, unknown, highly contagious disease to travel without restriction was a mistake.
Last edited by NSHL10; 10-24-2009 at 03:35 PM..
Reason: addded
Good question! I'm not sure now whether it was a poster or some right-wing blogger talking about all the long waits for medical care in the UK who then put up an unidentified picture that was actually of people waiting in line to get into the gallery for a session of the House of Commons. There were of course plenty of posters who put up a picture of a 1997 Promise Keepers rally as supposed evidence that 1.2 million people had attended FOX's 912DC astroturf rally. Scruples are like hen's teeth for some...it always pays to inquire.
My point exactly! Seriously, these people could be waiting for the doors to open and arrived early at wherever. There is no Public Option yet, so are we to assume they have no insurance or on Medicaid if it is even in the USA? I really do not know what to make of it.
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