no News is Flu News

Post by **The understudy** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 12:25 pm

Officials muzzled on H1N1

By: POST REPORTERS
Published: 16/06/2009 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: News

The Public Health Ministry is asking provincial health and hospital chiefs not to speak to the media about influenza A (H1N1) cases in an effort to calm disquiet over the extent of the spread of the virus. Ministry spokesman Suphan Sithamma said a letter was being sent to senior health figures warning them not to say anything about the number of flu cases and details about the patients. All information was to be filtered through health authorities in Bangkok.

The ministry's hush-hush order came as the number of flu cases passed the 200 mark and experts expected it to rise further.

The number of H1N1 victims in Thailand yesterday reached 201 after 51 new cases were confirmed.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and other officials, including cabinet members in charge of public health, have urged people not to panic as the virus has a low fatality rate.

Tawee Chotpitayasunondh, a virologist at the Queen Sirikit National Institute of Child Health, predicted the number of new cases in Thailand might peak within a month in line with the pattern of other countries.

New infections found in Japan and the US rose to between 300 and 400 cases during their peak periods before tailing off, Dr Tawee said. The number of new H1N1 cases in Japan had been holding steady since the peak of the outbreak was reached last month.

The Education Ministry has ordered the closure of 14 schools for a week to prevent the spread of the flu.

It said in a statement 60 students had been confirmed with the H1N1 flu. One was a student at the public health faculty at Mahidol University, one was with the science faculty at Chiang Mai University and the rest were schoolchildren.

Education Minister Jurin Laksanavisit has assigned permanent secretary for education Chinnapat Bhumirat to work with the Public Health Ministry in an effort to contain the spread in schools.

All Bangkok schools have undergone disinfection in recent days.

School directors have been authorised to exercise their own judgement on whether to suspend classes if any pupil is diagnosed with the new strain, Mr Jurin said. Apart from the students, two female American teachers who arrived in Trang from the US have tested positive for the virus. They were quarantined on arrival after showing signs of high fever at Trang airport and are recovering in Trang Hospital, a provincial public health official, Sathit Phaiprasert, said.

The Bangkok Mass Transit Authority and State Railway of Thailand have ordered staff to clean train carriages and buses more often.

The understudy's school of thoughts: Here are comments posted by people who redd this and commented on the Bangers Post which completely echos my thoughts:

Once again, the level of incompetancy has been aired publicly. Any Cabinet Member that knowingly deceives the public's right know about the dangers of a possible epedemic places his own preservation above the country's well being, and is not worthy of having any role in policy making.
Is the Public Health Ministry so ignorant to think it can keep this information secret? This will only create rumors and speculation that will compound rather than help the situation.
The current PM has an opportunity to prove he can/will safe guard the public by immediatly taking action to void any attempts to deceive the public by the dissemination of misinformation.
The creditbility of the entire nation depends on it.....

and this one

Which Genius came up with this act of censorship ?

How do people come to such conclusions - keep the people misinformed or uninformed- for what purpose. How condescending -"let us do your thinking for you "
This is a stupid directive which I hope is ignored by all responsible medical personel in Thailand

and last but not leat my own opinion: This measure will backfire badly on on Health minstry as there always and will be eger and enouraaged Journalist who are and will be. finding out if the Govt have everythng under control or not.

The understudy!!!

Post by **lomuamart** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 2:39 pm

I'm with you there, understudy. Saw the article earlier today and just couldn't believe it.
Edit - sorry put wrong OP name in.

Post by **sandman67** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 3:42 pm

the only pandemic here mate is one of fear ..... headless chicken fever or cry wolf syndrome.

Thailand has a population of: estimated 2007 63 million

Thailand so far has had 201 confirmed cases. I did the math for you..... 0.00031% infection rate.

NONE of which have been fatal. Thats zero, nada, nobody....nowt.

If you are a betting man heres a few other risks you should be scared mindless of:

dying after being struck by lightning
being killed by a falling coconut
dying of extacy poisoning or a drug overdose
getting killed by falling off a horse
and my fave
falling off a roof and breaking your neck

ALL of these are statistically more likely than catching the piggy sniffles.

The WHO has been backfooted by journalists doing their jobs properly back in the west, because there they pointed out that the normal seasonal flu both infects more people and kills more people every winter than this so called pandemic end of the world as we know it flu.

The real tragedy.....god fobid we do get a real killer pandemic because by that time a good percentage of the world population, like me, will have gone deaf to the warnings after having had WOLF shouted in their ears so often.

Post by **Nereus** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 4:08 pm

The article was headed by a photograph of a big group of cleaners scrubbing what appears to be a road. May even be walking sreet, in Pattaya. There has also been several reports of Schools in Bangkok being closed for "disinfecting". WTF???

Does this mean that the virus infection is laying about on the street?

I suppose that one good spin off from "disinfecting" will at least get rid of some of the spittle that some of these "people" have no qualms about splattering anywhere.

Post by **charlesh** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 4:12 pm

I thought muzzles for horses and rabid dogs. Now there's a new twist horse and dog flu!
This whole H1N1 saga is taking on the same ludicrous proportions of the millenium bug and the end of the computer world as we know it.
Perhaps the Air France flight fell out of the air because it was wound back to 1/1/2000???
PS go and wash your hands - you never know what might be on them!

Post by **Nereus** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 4:13 pm

http://www.bangkokpost.com/breakingnews ... lu-figures

The Public Health Ministry will not stop reporting the number of A(H1N1) influenza cases in Thailand, since it would not do any good, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said.

"I talked to Public Health Minister Witthaya Kaewparadai about this matter. He said the ministry will not stop reporting flu cases.

''However, only the number of confirmed cases will be reported to prevent confusion," he said.

Mr Abhisit was responding to a report that public health officials had been told not the speak to the media about the flu cases in their areas.

He did not think Thailand would have to restrict travel across the border, even if if the pandemic alert is raised another notch to level C.

The Public Health Ministry's latest number of confirmed cases is 310.

Post by **PeteC** » Tue Jun 16, 2009 4:32 pm

Nereus wrote:The article was headed by a photograph of a big group of cleaners scrubbing what appears to be a road. May even be walking sreet, in Pattaya.

Now there's an idea for some fun loving punter. Get a pet pig, dress her up in pig finest, then parade her on a leash down walking street. I wonder if panic or laughter would ensue?

Pete