Swine flu--Mexico and the U.S.

In Mexico, they are dying. In the U.S. they are getting sick, being treated, and going home.

Besser CDC update today, Apr. 28:"The CDC today raised the number of confirmed cases in the U.S. to 64, with 45 of them in New York. No deaths have been confirmed in the U.S. That will change, Besser said."

In Mexico, no one really knows how many are sick, or how many have died. I doubt that the government has reported it accurately. The government is in charge of their health care and their media may have about the same independence (none) as ours. So that may be the head scratcher answer for our journalists who can't seem to figure out why Mexicans are dying and Americans aren't.

The Mexican government for years has been dependent on money sent home by its illegal immigrants in the U.S., instead of developing its own infrastructure. Mexico is a country rich in natural resources, but entire cities and families have been descimated by emigration (who are probably now returning home). So far, their health care system hasn't even been able to get help to family members of those who have died, and this is spread person to person. I saw this from a blogger in Mexico (Medical News Today)

I live in Cancun, on the Caribbean coast of Mexico, about 1hour and 30 minutes by plane from Mexico City. Mexico City is the Swine Flu ground zero. A few days ago most of the Cancun population watched news coming from Mexico City with detachment. "This is over 1000 kilometers away," I heard one person say "we are fine." Gradually, local attitudes have changed.

Yesterday we all watched the national news and heard that restaurants, nightclubs, schools, theatres, sports stadia, and anywhere that might hold large groups of people had not only been closed in Mexico City, but along the vacation resorts of the Pacific coast - Acapulco, Puerto Vallarta, Zihuatanejo. Can you imagine the economic consequences of closing restaurants, bars and nightclubs in tourist resorts?

Friends in Mexico City phone me and describe empty streets. The few who do venture out wear masks and go about their business as swiftly as they can.

The whole of Mexico is scared. "Will I get this? If I do what will happen to me? Am I hearing the truth? They say it is not so bad and easily treatable, but they would say that, wouldn't they?"

I heard a young mother say today that she was told not to bring her daughter to preschool because she had a temp (teething), but she had the little girl at the senior center where I was volunteering. Doesn't seem to be much alarm here--although I think that was poor planning on her part, considering many elders are immune compromised. Probably because Americans know they don't have government health care. YET. However, a pandemic will be a good excuse for the government to take over, just like Obama took over the auto industry, to share it with the unions, who supported him and the banks. If we already had Obama-care, I think there would be a different story--a much larger, faster spread and many already dead. The government handled the last swine flu outbreak (1976) badly, with more people dying from the vaccine than from the flu.

Another thing journalists are asking is why young, healthy adults are dying. My parents' generation didn't die in the last flu pandemic in 1918. They were young children. It was young healthy adults that died--like our soldiers called to fight in Europe, but dying before they got there. That's how it spread--lots of young, healthy people crowded together. We lost more soliders to the flu than we did to the war, a war in which it wasn't unusual to lose more men in one campaign than the 6years we've been in Iraq. Most of that generation is gone now. The immunity is over. It died with my parents' generation.

We know now how to treat the effects of the flu, but it will be interesting to see if Obama uses this as a crisis to take over health care with out a vote or objection.

If we already had Obama-care, we'd be holed up in our homes like the Mexicans, whimpering, wondering why the people ever voted for the man who nationalized our industries, destroyed our military, created a constitutional crisis by attacking the former president, and groveled and pandered before foreign leaders. Oh well.

Update: In Wednesday's WSJ article about the swine flu, you had to get all the way to the end to find, "the sorry state of Mexico's public and private health system. . . patients often wait hours to days to see the doctor." Just the kind of Obama-care we need north of the border.

Update 2: On the way to the grocery store Wednesday I heard a young child had died in the U.S. of swine flu. On the way home, I learned the child was a Mexican brought to the U.S. for better treatment. It's a tragedy for the family, but a plus for Obama's team which is looking for opportunities to nationalize health care, so maybe it's not as good as an American death, but it's close.