{"id":752,"date":"2009-07-13T10:39:38","date_gmt":"2009-07-13T09:39:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/?p=752"},"modified":"2009-07-23T12:22:02","modified_gmt":"2009-07-23T11:22:02","slug":"tom-nolan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2009\/07\/13\/tom-nolan\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrity swine watch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" style=\"float: left\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bmj.com\/columns\/icons\/tom_nolan.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"160\" height=\"110\" \/><br \/>\nThe first UK swine flu death in a person without underlying health problems was reported on Friday. According to today&#8217;s <em><a title=\"Daily Mail article\" href=\"http:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-1199107\/Week-long-battle-UKs-fit-swine-flu-victim.html?ITO=1490\" target=\"_blank\">Daily Mail<\/a><\/em>, the man was &#8220;admitted to Basildon Hospital in Essex on July 1 and was placed in isolation in the intensive care unit.&#8221; The death has been referred for a post-mortem. In the United States, the government is encouraging the public to help in the fight against swine flu. <!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>We ask the American people to become actively engaged with their own preparation and prevention. It&#8217;s a responsibility we all share,&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>said Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.<\/p>\n<p>They are offering $2500 for the person who can come up with the best public service announcement that will help educate Americans about how to prevent the spread of H1N1 influenza.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the <em><a title=\"London Paper article\" href=\"http:\/\/www.thelondonpaper.com\/thelondonpaper\/news\/london\/news\/swine-flu-could-kill-thousands-in-london\" target=\"_blank\">London Paper<\/a><\/em> has reported that the UK government&#8217;s worst case scenario predictions in the event of half the population becoming infected would see a death rate of 2.5%.\u00a0 They tell us that &#8220;swine flu could kill nearly 95,000 people in the capital&#8221;. Apparently London boroughs with more people living in them will see more deaths and smaller boroughs will see fewer deaths. They&#8217;ve even created <a title=\"London Paper map\" href=\"http:\/\/www.thelondonpaper.com\/thelondonpaper\/news\/london\/news\/swine-flu-could-kill-thousands-in-london?image=0\" target=\"_blank\">a map<\/a> so you can see how many people might die in your borough.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Fast track vaccine<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The vaccination program in the US is set to begin in October. In the UK, the vaccine may be ready by September. The BMA&#8217;s lead negotiator on swine flu, Peter Holden, has been taking about the need to start vaccinating as soon as possible.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The high-risk groups will be done at GPs&#8217; surgeries. People are still making decisions over this, but we want to get cracking before we get a second wave, which is traditionally far more virulent,<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The new vaccine will be fast tracked in as few as five days according to the <em>Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The European Medicines Agency said the fast-tracked approval procedure has involved trials of a &#8220;mock-up\u201d&#8221; vaccine and that the speed would not compromise patient safety:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;The vaccines are authorised with a detailed risk management plan,&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>the agency said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Celebrity Swine-watch<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Booking yourself into rehab is so pass\u00e9. These days there&#8217;s only one health problem that&#8217;s worth having.<\/p>\n<p>Manchester City football player Micah Richards has given <a title=\"News article\" href=\"http:\/\/news.sky.com\/skynews\/Home\/UK-News\/Micah-Richards-Swine-Flu-England-Footballer-Contracts-Bug-During-Cyprus-Holiday\/Article\/200907215335725?lpos=UK_News_Carousel_Region_3&amp;lid=ARTICLE_15335725_Micah_Richards_Swine_Flu%3A_England_Footballer_Contracts_Bug_During_Cyprus_Holiday\" target=\"_blank\">a moving account<\/a> of the emotional turmoil he has been through during his bout of swine flu.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>At first I thought it was a really bad chest infection, or maybe alcohol poisoning. I felt so weak I couldn&#8217;t move or eat. When I was told I had swine flu all sorts of things started going through my mind. You see on the news people dying of it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Meanwhile Harry Potter star Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley) has his own horror story.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I didn&#8217;t find out until quite late that it was swine flu. I didn&#8217;t even notice it was anything different. It was just a pretty ordinary kind of flu. It was nothing really.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a title=\"ITN News\" href=\"http:\/\/itn.co.uk\/5f7635ebdeb525ff010c917742f7b101.html\" target=\"_blank\">ITN News<\/a>, pushing the boundaries of what can be considered quote-worthy to new limits, continued:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Emma Watson, who shares an on-screen kiss with the Grint in the movie, said she had not come down with the virus but said the news had been &#8220;a bit scary&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><em><strong>Tom Nolan<\/strong> is the clinical community editor of doc2doc, the BMJ\u2019s professional networking community.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The first UK swine flu death in a person without underlying health problems was reported on Friday. According to today&#8217;s Daily Mail, the man was &#8220;admitted to Basildon Hospital in Essex on July 1 and was placed in isolation in the intensive care unit.&#8221; The death has been referred for a post-mortem. In the United [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2009\/07\/13\/tom-nolan\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stg-blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}