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<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n(Sherburne, NY \u2013 Jan. 2013) For the first time in twelve years, I went out on New Year\u2019s Eve, and I am now paying dearly for it.\u00a0 No, not a weeklong hangover.\u00a0 The flu.\u00a0 Or at least I\u2019m assuming it\u2019s the flu, since the national news agencies are talking about the \u201cepidemic\u201d that is ravaging the country.\u00a0 18 deaths so far.\u00a0 500 people a day coming into NYC hospital emergency rooms.\u00a0 Hospitals in Boston and Philadelphia setting up tent cities outside because they\u2019ve run out of room inside.\u00a0 41 states affected by what some are calling a \u201cplague.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 According to Wikipedia, Hippocrates described flu-like symptoms about 2,400 years ago.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 It was described as “the greatest medical holocaust in history” and may have killed as many people as the Black Death.<\/p>\n
Extremely severe and unusual symptoms were initially misdiagnosed as dengue, cholera, or typhoid.\u00a0 One observer wrote, “One of the most striking of the complications was hemorrhage from mucous membranes, especially from the nose, stomach, and intestine.\u00a0 Bleeding from the ears and petechial hemorrhages in the skin also occurred.”\u00a0 Most deaths were from bacterial pneumonia, a secondary infection, but the virus also killed people directly, causing massive hemorrhages and fluid in the lungs.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 99 percent of the dead were people under 65; more than 50 percent of the dead were people aged 20 to 40.\u00a0 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\u2019s population.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s eyes, nose, or mouth \u2013 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.\u00a0 The length of time the influenza virus survives in airborne droplets is influenced by humidity and UV radiation.\u00a0 Winter\u2019s dry air and low sunlight levels increase the length of survival time.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
So, during this current plague, stay away from crowds, keep your hands off your face, and don\u2019t touch your eyes.\u00a0 Wash your hands obsessively.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
And if you have the flu, or even think you might have the flu, don\u2019t go to work or school or church no matter how critical you think your presence is:\u00a0 you will infect everyone in the room.\u00a0 Don\u2019t go to the grocery store or the gym or the library \u2013 stay home, preferably isolated in one room.\u00a0 And no matter how miserable you feel, be thankful that it\u2019s not a replication of the Spanish flu, that you\u2019re not bleeding from your ears, and that you\u2019ll probably be good to go in about 10 days.\u00a0 Today is day seven of misery for me.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Think Local By Chris Hoffman (Sherburne, NY \u2013 Jan. 2013) For the first time in twelve years, I went out on New Year\u2019s Eve, and I am now paying dearly for it.\u00a0 No, not a weeklong hangover.\u00a0 The flu.\u00a0 Or at least I\u2019m assuming it\u2019s the flu, since the national news agencies are talking about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4153,19005,23798],"class_list":["post-40981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-chris-hoffman","tag-sherburne-ny-news","tag-think-local"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40981\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}