Swine Flu

There has been a worrying outbreak of swine flu. there is a good description of it here. The new scientist has another article on the issue here.

The pandemic ventilator project here says

So what do we know? First the people that are dying are not the typical elderly and very young. They are mainly healthy young and middle aged adults. The death rate seems fairly high, perhaps as great as 10%. Death rates early on in a pandemic however are very difficult to pin down, as we really do not know how many people were infected but in fact had very mild symptoms and were not counted. The virus is spreading to many geographical locations quickly. The WHO has already stated that it’s first line defense against pandemic outbreaks, which is containment, is no longer possible. The reason that there are no major travel restrictions imposed by governments is not that they think the threat is too minor, but that it is past the point where travel restrictions will help. What is still unknown is how severe it will eventually be, and how readily it will spread.

There is not much information in this post. All I am trying to do is point out some sources of useful information on this new flu outbreak.