I read from today morning Iltalehti - who quoted F1-Live.com ( http://en.f1-live.com/f1/en/headlines/news...429101712.shtml )
that there's concern to have mass happening like F1 in middle of high density swine flu area. One suggestion has been to ran GP without spectators.

Your thoughts on that.
Floor is yours.

The report is unclear. are there regular flu infections in Catalunya? Or the new strain?

If it's regular flu, then I don't see why they should change anything.

Anyway, why does the German health minister try to influence something that isn't under her power to decide? Sure some hack asked her opinion, but not to comment is probably the better option. What events do they close in Germany, because of fears of flu?

I do hope they start with the parliament. Several hundred politicians breathing hot air, surely bears a high risk for catching the flu, not to mention verbal diar.. .

Yeah sure.

In typical F1 fashion nothing will be done. Races will be held as usual and the fans will continue to assemble. That is, until there's the first reported incident of swine flu spreading to fans who assembled during a race weekend.

Then all hell will break loose and governments will start banning or controlling the assembly of people. Bernard will give some lame quotes, FIA will release a statement stressing the importance of safety, the teams will concur with FIA and people will not go to races but rather watch them on TV.

The only people to truly suffer will be the circuit owners/promoters.

I heard tonight on the news that a professional football game in Mexico will be played, but spectators will not be allowed to see the game at the stadium. Instead, they will have to watch the match on tv.

Then they'd need to quarantine F1 personnel too. They could be possibly carrier of the virus. So stop the circus...

I hate it, when governments treat people as if they are clueless as to what to do. Sure some individuals are clueless, some might even go and purposely spread the disease, but the majority of people are concerned and thus careful enough what they are going to do.

Had I tickets to the Spanish GP, I'd certainly would wait till the last moment and then make an informed decision. Teams, F1 and the FiA will undoubtedly do that too.

As to governments. Instead of being reactionary, they better make sure that people understand basic health care issues. When we had SARS here, people got scared because of someone who had the disease (and died from it later) visiting doctors all over town. I simply told my family that for a few days we avoid unnecessary contact with others. School was cancelled, but in any case, I myself would have not let my kids go to school for a few days.

Going to the Spanish GP for me would be unnecessary activity. Too bad about the finacnial loss, but screw that. Monetary loss isn't as tragic as the loss of one human live.

Why is everyone so scared of swine flu?

The cancellation of large public gatherings isn't out of the question.. not sure when they would take the decision to do that.

I suppose the issue is that the "clueless" peoples actions would inevitably effect others. If such a gathering does cause a large number of people to get infected then some of those people are going to take that home with them and infect others. Given that the flu is contagious before symptoms start showing it's inevitable that people will be unwittingly infected and if you give it to a child or infirm person there seems to be a not insignificant chance that it'll do them in.

That said we're only talking about speeding up the transmission, obviously it's going to get around sooner or later in any case.

In my opinion it probably does make sense to "discourage" mass public gatherings in the early days while doctors etc are learning about the flu strain and establishing what good treatments are etc.

Until they have a good handle on it it makes sense to try keep the infection rate low, not that it'll be possible to keep the cat in the bag all that long.


Partly because the press love to scare people but behind all that is that fact that early indications were/are that this flu variant is significantly more lethal than most flues.

People might look back in a few weeks and think it was all a beat up.
On the other hand it might only look like a beat up because transmission was slowed enough to establish good treatments or even vaccines before too many people we're infected by it and the death rates thereby kept lower.

'Catalunya is not Spain'

Interesting thoughts. I personally think the press is exaggerating, like they do with lots of illnesses (remember Bird Flu? Nothing at all of any real note happened, it was just a few people who caught it and sadly died, but it didn't become the global pandemic that the press made it out to be).

I don't see how F1 can ever be cancelled because of a mass disease - as Bernie would say, the show must go on.

I think all this is 80% BS driven by the pharmaceutical industry. These days I believe very little of what's on the news.

A week is a long time in F1 and pandemics but atm I don't see them stopping people from attending - 10 cases in Spain so far?

Even if they ban people from attending the GP the race will go on - even if there is no one there. The teams will just think they are back in Bahrain...

As far as I now there are 10 proven cases of the flu so far in Spain. 6 of them are from Cataluña, 60%, which hardly is surprising since that area is densly populated.

Still, I don't know if I'd like to call that a "high density swine flu area"...

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/sociedad/pr...elpepisoc_4/Tes

worth bearing in mind as well though that even without fans, you still need people there such as marshals and the like, and theres nothing to say 1 of them won't walk into the circuit with the virus unknowingly, and end up unintentionally infecting someone from the F1 teams-anyone in the paddock, even without fans, could have it and not know it, have 50 people come into contact, they become infected, they infect others down the pitlane etc, even if the symptoms don't show until a week later

Here piggy piggy piggy

Are they going to close all the shopping centres in Spain too? All the supermarkets, cancel all the football matches, close all the airports?

No, because it would be stupid.

It's worth baring in mind that someone with the virus could walk down the main shopping street in madrid and pass it on to 50 people, then go into a supermarket and give it to another 50 by working at the check-outs for 10 hours. A teacher could give it to 30 school children, blah blah blah.

It's so damned stupid it's unreal, it's flu, some weak people always end up dying from flu.

Except this flu attacks those with strong immune systems, not the weak.

A1GP in Mexico cancelled

"The A1GP season will conclude at Brands Hatch this weekend after the series cancelled its Mexican round due to the swine flu crisis."
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/74932

A1 GP isn't close to F1.
It's like comparing the poker I play with my friends to the world series, or whatever.

It's also important to note though that if you die, you're not worried about it... YOU'RE DEAD!

I worry about getting something that might cause me to live to an old, old age in constant agony... But something that could kill me within days?

If that worries you, I'm surprised you'd fly and/or drive... Being killed mid-transport to the race is more likely...

And the typical flu kills someone every 15 minutes in the USA alone...


Then again, the buffet I eat at every day stopped serving any and all pork products about a week ago... You can't expect everyone to be rational, so you don't want to cause a panic...

Say that again, 254000 people died in Brazil's traffic in an 8 year period earlier this decade.
So I'm really not worried with the flu and more concenred in being a safe driver.

That's a pretty egotistical view. If nobody depends on you, e.g. family, that is understandable. Besides, does life end after death?

Anyhow, I don't worry about the current situation. How else would I 've been to a slum area in Mumbay, and even without questioning drunk the water the dwellers offered me. And in Hyderabad we worked with an Indian guy that ate and drank for several days the same food we did. He contracted somehow Cholera, we didn't. And for all the 3 months we worked in India amongst the poor people, I'd never once had diarrhea. I know who protects and in fact healed me more than once. I even survived viral meningitis (no Antibiotica works for that AFAIK even til today) when I was about 7 years old. Because of it while growing up I was all too familiar with doctors and hospitals. It took years for my immune system to recover.

So, I'm not foolhardy enough to try out my luck just to attend a F1 race. Has nothing to do with fear. Just with having other priorities.

If Spanish GP is to be cancelled because of swine flu it applies to Monaco and Turkey and so on.
Better cancel the championship, declare Button WDC and save money for the next year

Lot of fuss about nothing, here in England there is the grand total of EIGHT out of 60 odd million affected

No one has died outside of Mexico bar 1 baby and babies have notoriously bad immune systems

Even that baby came to the US from Mexico, as I have heard.

so far-doesnt mean within the next few weeks there won't be hundreds or thousands more people infected or killed by it in countries around the world including here (UK)-that may not happen, but doesnt mean it won't

I guess because it's spreading like crazy and it can be deadly.

100 marshals spread around the track vs 100 000 spectators in tightly-packed grandstands. Do you see any particular difference yet?

The problem is in today's media world that things often get blown out of proportion. This was the case with mad cow disease, SARS and bird flu. I still say, let's wait and see where does it all develop and yes, we have to keep an eye on it, but right now I think the media is overreacting. Sure it's a serious issue in Mexico and if the next GP would be held there I would agree to cancel it, just like A1GP was cancelled. However elsewhere in the World the situation doesn't seem to be that critical. Of all European swine flu patients I have heard their condition is not serious at all. It's like normal flu and it can be easily treated.

key things are,

1) it is said that normal flu kills around 20,000 (incl. flu related death) every year in US alone and around 300,000 worldwide.

so why scientists/experts see this time's flu as a matter? it's because

2) it's unseasonal plus rather sudden outbreak,
3) since it's one particular animal form of flu, if mutation that can infect human happens, human body doesnt know how to react to it so it COULD be dangerous, and no one on earth have immune system so that it COULD be spread at very fast speed.

but no need to panic and in fact no one is panicking.

it's true media is always crying wolf but it's your job after all to filter through those infos and extracts facts as much as possible. laughing off media produces nothing. watching/reading news with such "ha, they are at it again" bias is as dangerous as believing/following it blindly imo.

thing is that we dont know how it will develop. but there are people, scientists/experts/quarantine staff, not media/forumers thankfully, actually dealing with and working on it, so let's hope those people do properly and stay calm.

Those diseases didn't spread like crazy, especially not from person to person. WHO has increased pandemic alert level to five regarding swine flu. When you consider that and the speed at which swine flu is spreading, you will realize that it will become global. No authorities can stop it now. The important questions are how deadly this influenza is and when scientists can develop an effective vaccination, or can they do that at all.

Normal human flu also spreads from person to person. And it kills ten thousands of people every year. Yet there isn't such a fuss about it in the media.

as i wrote above, it's true that normal flu kills around 20,000 (incl. flu related death) every year in US alone and around 300,000 worldwide. but what makes this swine flu unusual are 1) it's unseasonal plus rather sudden outbreak, and 2) since it's one particular animal form of flu, if mutation that can infect human happens, human body doesnt know how to react to it so it COULD be dangerous, and no one on earth have immune system so that it COULD be spread at very fast speed.

#1 is a fact, #2 is a possibility.

but POSSIBILITY of explosive spread called pandemic is a fact.

the normal flu we encounter every year is an epidemic (still a serious matter of course).

but no need to panic is a fact too.

Ok... I guess if you had lived in 1918, you'd have called the spanish flu a storm in a teapot.

to develope the vaccine from the original virus takes about 2 months i heard

Well, feel free to be worried and afraid if that's what you want to do...

Normal flu is fairly predictable. In tends to be seasonal and the medical system can be prepared, doctors typically know what's coming and vaccines are available (at least here in Australia) so that the infirm etc can be protected against the variants that we expect to face. There isn't much fuss because the matter is relatively in hand, even so there will be announcements before flu season that it is time to get vaccinated if you are in a high risk group.

This H1N1 flu seems somewhat atypical though, we don't have a vaccine for it, it doesn't seem to be seasonal and there are some indications it is more lethal than common varients.

Medical science has obviously advanced significantly since 1918 but so has transport. Our advantage is that medical science may find a good way to protect us. The flu's advantage is that it can get to the other side of the globe and infecting additional populations within in a day.

As such it makes sense to take reasonable precautions to slow down the spread while we get a handle on it.

Just try to avoid places where this new flu has been detected.

México, USA, Canadá, NZ,UK,Israel,Austria,Germany,Holland,Switzerland,Spain all have cases.

In case of usual flu symptoms use a mask not to infect others (don't feel ashamed of wearing a mask... especially these days), and go to the doctor. This disease can easily be controlled with Tamiflu or Relenza, 54% of the infected have already recovered. Just react quickly, it's only dangerous if you let the time pass and you get pneumonia. Remember never get these medicines without the certainty of infection and the doctor's indication, otherwise your body may not react to influenza and other serious effects.

I just phoned the NHS Swine Flu Helpline. All I got was crackling.

Helps to have a thick skin.

It (Influenza A/H1N1 aka Swine Flu) officially arrived in my city today, so I'll let you folks know if we all start dropping like flies. Or when the zombie hordes take over, whichever comes first.

Only 20 people out of a world population of 6 billion have actually died of SF(http://uk.reuters.com/article/UKNews1/idUKTRE53S0G220090429)

Perspective, anyone?

I think I've got it. I've come out in a rasher.

Don't be scratching it will you.

Sounds nasty, you'll be needing an Oinkment for that.

so far-doesnt mean millions won't die (hopefully that won't happen)

Hope Bernie & Max get it.