WHO 'declares swine flu pandemic'

I was expecting this and thought it would happen sooner . . . WHO 'declares swine flu pandemic' (from the BBC website).

"Hong Kong said it was closing all its nurseries and primary schools for two weeks following 12 school cases."

If they actually do this in Korea I'll fall over dead from the shock . . . . lol.

"One factor which may have prompted the move to a level six pandemic was that in the southern hemisphere, the virus seems to be crowding out normal seasonal influenza."

Flu season in Korea is going to be VERY 'interesting' this year . . .

"WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said it had been expecting something more like the deadlier bird flu.

"It was believed that the next pandemic would be something like H5N1 bird flu, where you were seeing really high death rates, and so there were people who believed we might be in a kind of apocalyptic situation and what we're really seeing now with H1N1 is that in most cases the disease is self-limiting," he told the BBC."

Uhm . . . I guess the up-side of the H1N1 virus being less lethal is that it's giving countries a chance to wake up and make some needed changes . . . if they are paying attention that is.

"Flu expert Professor John Oxford, said people should not panic as the outbreak was milder than others seen in the past century."

I wonder if Professor Oxford could come to Korea and educate the Korean media about this kind of thing . . . and also point out that it's not only foreigners who get H1N1.

J