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H1N1 (Swine Flu)
Emy's Life & Music & Random & School Life
On Monday and Tuesday my school was closed. Apparently, a student had been diagnosed with Swine Flu (H1N1). I am not surprised at all, because for our spring break a ton of seniors all went to Mexico together, and most of them came back sick. I was actually sick about a week ago for four days, my parents and I thought it was just the seasonal flu but now we’re beginning to wonder… The symptoms were right for the swine flu, and many of my friends already assumed I had it. So, guess what everyone, I had swine flu and lived! *gasp* This is pretty much going to be a rant about swine flu, so if you’re interested in world news and such this blog may interest you, and if you aren’t skip down to the very last paragraph…
Right now, the media is going overboard on this whole swine flu thing. As my biology teacher said, “Last night I was so worried because I heard on the news that swine flu turns you into a pig! But this morning they said you only begin to snort and stuff if you don’t die first, that eases my worries a little” (note: he was being sarcastic). There have been 44 deaths and like the normal, seasonal influenza those deaths can be categorized: infants, elderly, weak/deficient immune system. And 42 out of the 44 deaths have been in a developing country, Mexico, which is also the epicenter of the disease. Normal influenza kills around 40,000 people in the United States each year (these deaths can also be categorized). Now, the thing to really worry about is if the virus mutates.
Swine flu isn’t really ’swine flu’. According to my biology teacher, the H1N1 virus has DNA strands from swine flu, bird flu, and normal influenza. As of now, swine flu isn’t anything to worry about (the CDC and our local state government have weakened their policies towards it, meaning schools don’t have to be shut down as long), but what is causing the most concern in the professional-medical-world is the chance of the virus mutating. Viruses mutate all the time and to become resistant to medication- they have too for survival. This is what happened in the 1918 Pandemic. When the flu was first discovered at the military base in the United States, it didn’t cause much concern because the symptoms were not severe and our bodies own immune system could fight off the disease with little trouble. However, in the fall of 1918 the virus mutated and became the deadliest virus of the 20th century.
In the mutated H1N1 of 1918 form, the virus attacked so strongly that it killed people with the strongest immune systems (18-35 year olds). Infants and elderly were still affected by the virus and many of them were killed by it, but the overwhelming majority were young adults. But, how could this be possible? If you’re thinking that a virus that has the normal effect on people with weaker immune systems and a deathly effect on people with the strongest immune systems can not be possible, you are right it isn’t. It wasn’t the virus that killed the young adults, it was their own immune systems. To put it simply, the virus attacked so strong that their immune systems attacked their own lungs even stronger and eventually shut them down. People who were fine in the morning could die of respiratory failure in the afternoon. This happened almost ninety years ago, so hopefully even if our swine flu of today does mutate into a similar form of the 1918 virus we’ll know how to protect ourselves.
In our modern day and age, we should be able to protect ourselves from this with technology, good medication, and a vaccine that will hopefully be developed soon. What’s scary though, is that everyone who was sick for the past couple of weeks became sick again a couple of days after the thought they were better… which makes me wonder if the virus has already started to mutate inside of our own bodies. (assuming we had swine flu, which is probable). I am not going to worry about swine flu until it actually becomes a problem… right now it’s just an annoyance.
I have AP Music Theory test Monday… if I get a 3 I’ll be ecstatic. The practice test was so hard… and I don’t understand the AP grading scale at all. I am a sophomore and at our school this is the first AP test we’re allowed to take. We have to listen to songs and identify form and stuff (which isn’t too hard), compose a four-point counter-point melody, write down a melody given only one note/time signature/key, and write down the soprano, bass, and roman/arabic numerals of a four point counter melody given only two notes/time signature/bass. I fail at anything to do with ear training… so I’m not looking forward to this.
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