Think Local
By Chris Hoffman
(Sherburne, NY – Jan. 2013) For the first time in twelve years, I went out on New Year’s Eve, and I am now paying dearly for it. No, not a weeklong hangover. The flu. Or at least I’m assuming it’s the flu, since the national news agencies are talking about the “epidemic” that is ravaging the country. 18 deaths so far. 500 people a day coming into NYC hospital emergency rooms. Hospitals in Boston and Philadelphia setting up tent cities outside because they’ve run out of room inside. 41 states affected by what some are calling a “plague.” It took me two days to realize I was sick, and in those two days, I managed to infect a friend, who is now also sick.
Although the RNA viruses that cause flu evolve rapidly into discrete strains, they have clearly been among us in one form or another for millennia. According to Wikipedia, Hippocrates described flu-like symptoms about 2,400 years ago. The first probable influenza pandemic started in Russia in 1580 and spread to Europe via Africa killing over 8,000 people in Rome and nearly obliterating several Spanish cities.
The most famous and lethal outbreak was the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which lasted for a year and killed between 50 and 100 million people, the result of a nearly 50 percent infection rate. It was described as “the greatest medical holocaust in history” and may have killed as many people as the Black Death.
Extremely severe and unusual symptoms were initially misdiagnosed as dengue, cholera, or typhoid. One observer wrote, “One of the most striking of the complications was hemorrhage from mucous membranes, especially from the nose, stomach, and intestine. Bleeding from the ears and petechial hemorrhages in the skin also occurred.” Most deaths were from bacterial pneumonia, a secondary infection, but the virus also killed people directly, causing massive hemorrhages and fluid in the lungs.
The 1918 Spanish flu pandemic spread as far as the Arctic and the Pacific islands and killed between 2 percent and 20 percent of those infected, most of whom were young adults. 99 percent of the dead were people under 65; more than 50 percent of the dead were people aged 20 to 40. It is estimated that this pandemic killed as many as 25 million people in the first 25 weeks, eventually killing between 2.5 percent and 5 percent of the world’s population. For comparison, the number of WWII military deaths in all countries is estimated at 22.4 to 25.5 million over a period of 5.5 years.
People with flu are infectious from the day before symptoms appear, are most infectious on the second and third days, and remain infectious for 5 to 7 days afterward. The virus is spread by direction transmission (sneezing directly into another person’s eyes, nose, or mouth – mucous membranes being key); by inhaling the aerosols produced when an infected person coughs or sneezes; and by hand-to-eye, hand-to-nose, or hand-to-mouth transmission after touching a contaminated surface or by direct personal contact, such as a handshake. The length of time the influenza virus survives in airborne droplets is influenced by humidity and UV radiation. Winter’s dry air and low sunlight levels increase the length of survival time.
The virus remains viable outside the body and can be transmitted on contaminated surfaces like money, doorknobs, light switches, keyboards and the mouse to your computer, as well as telephones. It survives about five minutes on skin, for about 15 minutes on dry paper tissues (longer on wet, mucous-laden Kleenex, for example), and up to two days on hard nonporous surfaces like plastic or metal.
So, during this current plague, stay away from crowds, keep your hands off your face, and don’t touch your eyes. Wash your hands obsessively. Sanitize your phones and keyboards and doorknobs and countertops and everything else you touch that anyone you work or live with might have a reason to touch.
And if you have the flu, or even think you might have the flu, don’t go to work or school or church no matter how critical you think your presence is: you will infect everyone in the room. Don’t go to the grocery store or the gym or the library – stay home, preferably isolated in one room. And no matter how miserable you feel, be thankful that it’s not a replication of the Spanish flu, that you’re not bleeding from your ears, and that you’ll probably be good to go in about 10 days. Today is day seven of misery for me.
Chris Hoffman lives in the village of Sherburne in her 150+ year-old house where she caters to the demands of her four cats, attempts to grow heirloom tomatoes and herbs and reads voraciously. She passionately pursues various avenues with like-minded friends to preserve and protect a sustainable rural lifestyle for everyone in Central New York.