Chile Forum

On my flight MIA-LAX on a fully packed 777, sat next to a Korean couple with minor cold or flu symptoms - cough and sniffles Will report if I caught something on that flight in the next couple of days. Will also report firsthand on my reentry into Chile and my possible quarantine before the end of the month

Sorry about this EE, I am implementing a new emergency forum policy. If you get the swine flu we will have to quarantine you by banning your user name until you bring a doctors note. After all, we have many poor innocent Windows users here with no immunity to viruses of any sort.

Perhaps we can just quarantine you in the lobby or classified section.

✈ ☣

Come on? You are not worried about the swine flu, you are just scarred someone might convince you to get a 9-5 in that "other" World. Being infected by the swine flu is the least of your concerns.

Hi EEUU I arrived to SCL on AA945 on Friday, must have just missed you in the fog. The nurses at SCL looked "carnival hot" in those masks eh? I was looking for the kneepads but with the thermal camera? Never mind...

MikieO,

Just missed you. Was in Santiago for the day on Friday checking out a business related matter before my flight out on Saturday. Hmmm, like your imaginative summary of the SCL welcoming committee

admin Charles,

Ahh, ehmm, no comment


Speaking of which there was just quite a sharp jolt in the LA area 15 minutes ago. Felt like a 5 or so. Pestilence, earthquakes and people telling you to get a job in the real world. We are doomed……

The impending Chile forum quarantine of EE aside, things seem to be getting a bit more serious.

Pan American health organization.
http://new.paho.org/hq/index.php?option ... temid=1167

WHO may raise the alert level (hello, where have they been).
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/18/world ... .html?_r=1

One clarification is in order There is a sentence on the Pan American organization page that makes it sound like there has been deaths in Chile:

Up to 17 May 2009, 8.409 confirmed cases of the new virus influenza A (H1N1) infection, including 74 deaths, have been notified in 14 countries of the Americas: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Peru and the United States.

Read carefully, because there are 0 deaths in Chile to date, and only one sick person from other countries.

I would however recommend that everyone take this seriously. I am not a doctor, but I have years of study in logic (you really would not know it from what I say on the forum), philosophy of science, and stats ( announcements by organizations such as the WHO and CDC back me up here ) to say this is already way way beyond their ability to monitor let alone control. The major media outlets are ignoring this for lack of blood and gore. By the time they find it profitable to cover this again, it really will be too late.

Here is the question I would like everyone to ask themselves:
When is the last time you seen a live CDC or WHO press conference in say the last week, two weeks, or month?

They are holding them everyday right now. I monitor BBC, CNN, CNN spanish, Bloomberg, plus all the Spanish channels on direct TV. Not much coverage, but things have gotten worse. So, even if this turns out to be nothing, it should be a case study in how the media can drop a story just because it is not sexy. Do your homework.

Newscast from Santiago Radio I have to read for the morning broadcast:

--------------START------------------

Chilean health authorities on Sunday confirmed a second case of the A/H1N1 flu, hours after the first case was confirmed.

Both victims were women over 30 who had arrived in Chile from the Dominican Republic. The second woman is a friend of the first, who had arrived from Punta Cana, aboard Copa Airlines flight 437.

That flight carried over 100 people and health authorities are now working hard to locate all of those aboard, Health Minister Alvaro Erazo told reporters.

Earlier in the day, Erazo said the first woman had been quarantined at the Thorax Hospital in the capital and was receiving anti-viral treatment.

He said the fever scanner installed at the airport terminal had shown effectiveness, "allowing us appropriate detection and information of every person entering the country."

Sources at Copa Airlines said they were cooperating with authorities in seeking passengers on the Saturday flight.

The World Health Organization said that there are now 8,451 cases of the disease worldwide, but only six deaths outside of Mexico, with four in the United States and one each in Canada and Costa Rica. The United States now has 4,714 cases of the flu, the largest number across the globe.

-----------END--------------

We continue to update our listeners on this issue in Chile with bulletins from the US embassy and our Chilean Government sources. I also have to agree with Charles, this is not sexy news, but then again on our station we don't do sexy news. We just do the news.

Cheers

Dan

Well, it was just a matter of time.

O.k. Chilean news channels are reporting 2 confirmed, 7 suspected cases in Chile. None appear to have originated so far in Chile.

This cat if fairly well out of the bag now.

Chile has 5 confirmed cases, no deaths, all cases so far seem to be fairly mild.

There is a scheduled news conference with the health ministry this morning.

Three of the cases are women that traveled from the Domican Republic. All where friends traveling together and they all contracted it.

There is currently one school that has been closed, as one student was confirmed to have it and other children at the school are suspected. We will try to get more info on this.

There is one rather strange confirmed case of a child with H1N1, that everyone is baffled as to how they got it. The kid had no contact with any foreigners. The only rather loose link they can make is that several weeks before the family briefly met some friends that had traveled to Mexico, but even that is not confirmed. They simply have no idea how he came in contact with it.

On personal note, I find it rather interesting that although the cases around the World for the most part seem mild, the flu does seem to have a very high communicability in terms of even just passing contact.

10 confirmed cases on tonight news.