China will be the first country in the world to start a mass vaccination program to inoculate their citizens against the threat of H1N1, commonly known as "swine flu." Shirong Chen, the BBC's China editor, explains that China learned valuable lessons from their experience with the SARS virus. He also offers an explanation for why China has opted to first inoculate the politicians and the participants in the National Day Parade.

From acetaminophen to gargling with salt water, most people we know will do anything to recover from being sick... except skip a day of work. But this attitude won't jibe with the H1N1 virus: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are recommending that Americans who catch swine flu take at least 3-5 days off of work to prevent the illness from spreading. Even the thought of one hour of isolation from our cubicles gives us the jitters, so today, we're sitting down with clinical psychologist Robin Kerner to try to understand exactly why it is that Americans have such a hard time just staying home.

Need additional proof that Americans just don't vacation? Read Why we don't vacation like the French in the American Prospect, Please don't make me go on vacation in the New York Times, and Money vs. Time Off: Why we don't take vacations from The Digerati Life.

Read Robin Kerner's blog post

 

Yesterday, the president held a press conference to update the nation about the government's preparedness for an impending outbreak of H1N1, or "swine flu." The briefing was lackluster, to say the least, and it came on the heels of some startling news: there's suspicion that three people in Egypt might have independently come down with both avian flu and H1N1 simultaneously, a viral partnership that could allow H1N1 to become more virulent. (For more, read this article from the International Society for Infectious Diseases.) Are we really prepared for that? To read between the lines of dry bureaucratic-speak, we've called in our swine flu guru, Dr. Richard Wenzler.

Click through for a transcript of the president's remarks or watch his speech below:

A panel convened by President Obama to study the H1N1 flu, or "swine flu," presented a report Monday with a "plausible scenario" in which as many as 90,000 people could die of the flu this fall.  To help understand this prediction, we're joined by Dr. Richard Wenzel, chair of the Department of Internal Medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University and former President of the International Society for Infectious Diseases.

With summer coming to a close, the United States is preparing for autumn's flu season. The Department of Health and Human Services said only 45 million doses of the vaccine against H1N1 (or "swine flu") will be ready in October, rather than the 120 million doses they had expected. While pregnant women and health care workers will be the first to get the two-dose vaccine, school-age children and teens are next in line. So who better to deliver those H1N1 vaccines than the schools themselves? In what could be the largest campaign since the polio vaccine in the 1950’s, schools across the country are preparing to inoculate their students. Joining us for a look at the supply of and demands for the H1N1 vaccine – and how it will be administered – is Dr. Maria Simbra. She’s the medical reporter for KDKA TV in Pittsburgh.

Thanks to the prospect of a mutated H1N1, Americans will enter this year's flu season with trepidation. Researchers are closer to developing vaccines, but the only way to verify that the immunizations are safe is to test them on human volunteers. We talk to one such brave subject, Gordon Potts, who got a vaccine yesterday. We also talk to Dr. Mark Mulligan, executive director of the Hope Clinic at the Emory Vaccine Center.

As the federal government prepares to release its recommendations for schools during flu season, The Takeaway talks to two workers on the front lines of the war on the flu. Ryan Kelley is the emergency medical services manager for the Imperial County Public Health Department in El Centro, California. He closed four schools last April because of confirmed swine flu cases, but is expecting a different approach during the upcoming school year. Kathleen Murphy is the health services coordinator for the Milwaukee Public Schools in Wisconsin. In addition to being in charge of Milwaukee's public school health services, Kathleen is also a nurse. Wisconsin was hit particularly hard with the H1N1 flu and the problem hasn't ebbed with the summer.

Parents are worried about the spread of H1N1 (or swine flu) when school starts up in September. In advance of potential outbreaks, the Obama administration is finalizing guidelines that could scale back government-recommended school closings in response to outbreaks of H1N1. The goal is to keep schools open as much as possible. This fall, federal authorities will recommend closures only under "extenuating circumstances," such as if a school has many children with underlying medical conditions or if many students or staff members are already sick. For more we turn to Spencer S. Hsu, a staff writer for the Washington Post.

A Centers for Disease Control advisory panel has recommended that pregnant women get top priority for an H1N1 vaccine when it is expected to become available this fall. How is this recommendation reverberating on the frontlines? The Takeaway turns to Dr. Richard Wenzel, an epidemiologist and Chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University, who has just returned from studying the spread of the flu in South America. Also joining the conversation are Leila Laniado, an Atlanta resident who is 5 months pregnant and weighing her options, and Dr. Laura Riley, an OB/GYN at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston explains what she is telling her patients about the vaccine.

The swine flu has been out of the headlines lately, but the H1N1 virus has already infected over one million people in the United States. Federal health officials are very concerned about a pandemic when flu season ramps up in the fall. The heads of several federal agencies including Kathleen Sebelius, the head of Health and Human Services, Arne Duncan, the Secretary of Education, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, are all working to try and prevent an epidemic. Dr. Fauci joins The Takeaway with his thoughts on beating the virus.

H1N1, commonly known as “swine flu," has now been found in 45 states in the U.S., with over 3,300 confirmed cases across the nation. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced this week that pregnant women should be treated with Tamiflu, even though the drug isn't normally recommended during pregnancy, because of the risks that the virus poses. One of the three H1N1-related deaths in the U.S. was a pregnant woman in Texas. Tim Uyecki joins us to talk about sensible protections. He’s a medical epidemiologist at the CDC who’s been shaping the center's guidelines for vulnerable populations like pregnant women and young kids.
For more of The Takeaway's coverage of H1N1, click here.

Other Flu Resources
Map: State-by-state swine flu infections (The Takeaway)
Read and listen to more about swine flu (The Takeaway)
Times Topics: Swine Flu (The New York Times)
Q&A: Swine Influenza and You (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
Understanding Swine Flu (The New York Times)
Key Facts (CDC)
Swine Flu (CDC)
Swine Flu Alert Map (HealthMap.org)
Consults Blog (The New York Times)
Follow CDCemergency on Twitter

Experts said our interconnected world was going to make outbreaks like H1N1 far worse than those that came before. But author Steven Johnson says that information spreads faster than people do, and that's what will keep us safe. This is thanks to what he calls "information ubiquity," which is the same force behind the decline of newspapers and the rise of e-readers like the Kindle. Johnson is the author of a recent book about the 1854 cholera epidemic in London called The Ghost Map as well as Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software, and his most recent book is The Invention of Air. He is also the founder of hyper-local reporting site Outside.In.

For more, read Steven Johnson's article in the Wall Street Journal, How the E-Book Will Change the Way We Read and Write.

One of the ongoing mysteries of the H1N1 influenza outbreak is why it killed 26 people in Mexico, but only two people right across the border in the U.S. Is it simply that the virus is less virulant now? Or can we learn something by looking at how each nation handles public health crises? The Takeaway talks to Dr. Julio Frenk, former Mexican Minister of Health and now Dean of the Harvard School of Public Health.

Ever since this whole "swine flu" thing erupted it's been nothing but talk about humans, humans, humans. But what's it been like to be a virus these last few weeks? Today, we shrink down to take a look at life from the point of view of one of the world's smallest biological toxins. How, really, do viruses get out of one organism and travel to another? (Warning: It's pretty gross.) What perils face a virus that ventures outside the human body? Our microscopic tour guide is The Takeaway's favorite virus hunter, Dr. Susan P. Fisher-Hoch, an epidemiologist at the University of Texas School of Public Health and co-author of Level 4: Virus Hunters of the CDC.

If you want to see the view of the body a virus sees, all you have to do is watch Fantastic Voyage, a 1966 classic in which "four men and a beautiful lady" were shrunk down and sent into the bloodstream on a submarine (it was not yellow):

For high quality video, click the "HQ" button.

You can't get swine flu from eating pork. (And it’s not even called swine flu anymore—technically it’s H1N1 Influenza A.) Nonetheless, the pork industry can’t be happy about having its product associated with a frightening illness, even if that association is completely imaginary. Advertising consultant Cindy Gallop (who's never actually worked for the pork industry) joins The Takeaway with her creative suggestions for resuscitating a product that's been sullied by circumstances.

Curious about the pork industry's response to the flu? Check out our conversation with Mike Faga from Iowa Select Farms, the largest pig producer in Iowa, in Pork producers push back at H1N1 fears.

Are we ethically obliged to cover our mouths when we cough? To wash our hands after we sneeze? These questions prompted a column by our friend and New York Times Ethicist Randy Cohen, and he joins us with more.

For more, read Randy Cohen's entry, Flu Fighters in his Moral of the Story blog for the New York Times.

In the wake of fears over the spread of so-called "swine influenza," pork prices have plummeted. In Alberta, Canada, pigs have been quarantined after catching the flu from a farm employee. In Egypt, riot police clashed with pig farmers while trying to stop farmers from slaughtering their own animals. In Iraq, three wild boars at the Baghdad zoo were slaughtered. Swine flu means bad news for pigs and pig farmers, despite loud messages from the World Health Organization and CDC that the flu is not spread by eating pork. The Takeaway talks to Mike Faga, a Human Resources Director with Iowa Select Farms, the largest pig producer in Iowa.

Looks like H1N1 virus, still more popularly known as the swine flu, is waning in Mexico. The virus has sickened at least 245 people in the U.S., and killed a young boy. So what lies ahead? Obviously no one (except maybe psychic John Edwards) knows for sure, but some disease trackers are mapping a possible course. How? Well, a computer simulation out of Northwestern University is taking inspiration from an unusual source: the dollar bill. Donald McNeil Jr, Science reporter for our partner, The New York Times, joins The Takeaway with a look at how the virus might spread in the U.S.

For more, read Donald G. McNeil Jr.'s article, Predicting Flu With the Aid of (George) Washington, in today's New York Times.

Mexican officials announced this week a total shutdown of the entire country in response to the outbreak of influenza A H1-N1, better known as the swine flu. Offices, restaurants, schools, and soccer stadiums will be closed from Friday through Tuesday. Joining The Takeaway is Gustavo Arellano, a writer for the OC Weekly in Orange County, California. He also writes the blog Ask A Mexican.

Hundreds of schools nationwide received unexpected vacation days this week for thousands of school kids because of concerns about swine flu. In Fort Worth, Texas, all 144 schools were closed because of a suspected swine flu case.

Joining The Takeaway is Monica Davey, the Chicago bureau chief for The New York Times, and Clint Bond, spokesperson for The Fort Worth Independent School District to talk about the various reactions nationwide towards how to deal with swine flu concerns that are affecting our daily lives.