posted Jul 21, 2009 3:35 PM by Nick Parker
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updated Jul 21, 2009 5:40 PM
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The WHO and the PHO (the Panamerican Health Organization - I always thought we could do with some Mo' PHO) have decided to focus their attention on the province of Santa Fe in order to study the evolution of the pandemic. For reasons unknown, Santa Fe has been far worse affected in terms of deaths than almost any other province, registering 68 to date compared with 77 in neighbouring Buenos Aires province. The rest of us are very small players accounting for the balance of the 165 fatalities so far confirmed.
Not that we're quite done yet. There's talk of a possible resurgence in cases in the first fortnight of August, which will make for exciting times. With this in mind talks have been tabled to discuss the possibility of delaying the return to school, scheduled for next week. I see the UK is considering something similar. It could be that it was already too late for BsAs and Sta Fe, but came in time for the rest of us here, but I could be wrong.
Meanwhile, I keep trying to get him to read my blog, so I'll do him the courtesy of linking to his post from here, not that he needs any help from my measly traffic, do you Simon? Take a bloody aspirin!? I'm sure you've had some lovely comments from people on their deathbeds. Off to read now.
In the meantime, fingers crossed for another week's holiday please and thank you. I'm quite enjoying this. I've even started writing a book. Yes...I know...ANOTHER ONE! This one I might just finish.
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posted Jul 16, 2009 1:04 PM by Nick Parker
What the fuck's going on with you lot up there? I mean you lot in the UK. What, you got a couple of dozen deaths and suddenly switch off. Oh that's right, of course you do. It's like the airliner that goes down outside Abu Dhabi, but no Brits are on board, so it's ok, because it's not news.
Here's the Flu pandemic page from the Guardian WORLD news: WORLD!!! (according to the Guardian today, at least).
Count the non UK-centric stories all of a sudden. Quite pathetic really. Oh, Cherie Booth might have Swine Flu, la la la. Frankly, most people probably hope she has got swine flu. She's a git. Amazing how much smaller the world gets for a bunch of muesli-eating pseuds when what was heretofore a third world and US affliction comes to interfere with your enjoyment of the ashes and a bit of punting on the Cam, more strawberries and balsamic, don't mind if I do, have you seen Jude Law's Hamlet, what a revelation.
When Mexico was going under, you couldn't move for the tidal wave of stories in the UK press about how fucking awful it was, and the poor, poor Mexicans, look how brave they're being with their colourful little masks. They're very musical people, you know. And brown. Mainly brown and poor, so we must feel sorry for them. Ahhh, look, they've suspended mass. Let's make a story about how they've suspended mass. Can't fucking stand religion myself, especially Catholicism, but these poor brown people need something to distract them from the pointlessness of their miserable, underdeveloped existence, ya ya ya ya ya glark vomit bleurghhhhhhh. Oh look, almost samphire season.
God, if my family didn't still live there I'd be praying for it to go hemorrhagic come the northern winter. That'd shew ya.
And I just spelled hemorrhagic correctly without having to look it up, so fuck the horse you rode in on too.
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posted Jul 15, 2009 11:06 AM by Nick Parker
I'd slowed down on posting because a brief scan of the headlines the past couple of days led me to believe that things had peaked.
Then I check out La Nación today and find we've shot past Mexico to take second place in the mortality league. That's not something to brag about, right?
While we've somehow clocked up 137 official deaths so far, Mexico's total stands at 124, if my sources in the capital are correct. But hang on, they've got a population of 111 million squashed into the 14th largest country in the world, while we are a mere 40 million rattling around in the eighth largest. So what the hell are we doing getting so much deader?
Well, we started later, basically with the onset of winter, meaning everything combined with flu season. The main focus of the fatalities has been the capital and the province of Buenos Aires, fairly obviously populous areas. The province of Sante Fe, to the north of Buenos Aires, is also carrying an extra burden of victims, somewhat unexpectedly.
The sudden rise in deaths is also being partly blamed on people staying away from doctors' waiting rooms despite being ill, and only seeking medical attention when they were already very sick. I'm guessing people were doing so in part because they thought they had normal flu and were terrified of catching swine flu in waiting rooms full of plague bringers. And why were people terrified? Because the Government kept shutting everything down and telling people to stay at home.
Meanwhile, our beloved neighbours in Chile have so far only 33 dead to mourn. Apparently it's not front page news there so people aren't shitting their pants. They're so much more "British" in terms of their composure on that side of the Andes. Maggie would be proud.
Back in Wonderland, I'm in danger of upsetting the President. Apparently she's not a big fan of making these sorts of comparisons with other countries , presumably because it makes her Government look so shit.
She said: "No me gustan nada esos rankings / I don't like those league tables at all."
Of course not, because they make you look shit. Anyway, she neatly dodged all responsibility, referring all questions to the Health Ministery in a manner reminiscent of Donald Rumsfelt ("Les pido que no me hagan decir cosas que no digo / I would ask you not to make me say things that I don't say." - BRILLIANT!!) before continuing with whatever it was she was doing down at the docks. (Not entirely sure what that was, actually, but you can be sure it involved wearing gorgeous high-heeled boots and pouting her trout lips at random strangers.)
Scanning around for help beyond our borders, not much is forthcoming. There is a meeting in progress between Argentina and its neighbours to work out why we're so much more buggered in relation to them (presumably Cristina hasn't been invited lest the comparisons offend). The WHO, meanwhile, doesn't have an answer . Well that's nice. Which bit of World, Health & Organization exempts you from finding a solution? Too busy sucking up to the UK and timing the release of the vaccine just right so we miss out down here and they get it all up there, are you? Oh, in that case, sorry for bothering.
The upshot is, head for head, we are in fact number one in the world's most depressing league table: The US authorities have confirmed 200 deaths, but it's worth remembering that their population could swallow ours more than seven times, perhaps quite literally.
Notwithstanding, in 2007, here in Argentina, 18,350 people perished from pneumonia, 563 of bronchiolitis, and 24 died of common flu. Wow, only 24 from common flu. And it was an extraordinarily cold winter.
Anyway, sometimes we really are the best at being worst.
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posted Jul 11, 2009 3:30 PM by Nick Parker
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updated Jul 11, 2009 4:29 PM
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And I was being so good about the folks of Buenos Aires, saying how rational and calm they were being in their response to the mayhem. And then they go and do this. Not only closed caskets for wakes but compulsory cremation for the remains of flu victims. Whu-whu-whu-whut?
This is a country where open caskets and 24-hour wakes immediately following a death are par for the course, and it's hard to imagine attempting to mess with that.
Most people not immediately related to the deceased will no doubt limit their wailing and sobbing to the ante-chamber as a fairly human precaution. Immediate family members probably won't care.
But compulsory cremation? Get over it: "That measure is a mistake,"Jorge San Juan, head of intensive care at Muñiz Hospital
and coordinator of epidemiological emergency of the Health Ministry
told La Nación newspaper.
"It's necessary to establish protocol regarding the remains of the deceased because of secretions that remain contagious for several hours. But to oblige the family to cremate the body is not necessary,"
Words from the likes of Dr San Juan have, rather fortunately, forced the government of the capital back to the drawing board. But we're still not thinking things through. It's bloody pathetic.
Oh, and officially, 94 dead. Unofficially, we're passed the ton.
How you doing up north? Word of your "Swine Flu Parties" reached La Nación via bbc online. Some posters were not impressed, but I stood up for you like a dutiful expat, though if you could stop calling them "parties" it might help the overall image.
Encounters, maybe? Soirées? Gatherings, workshops, focus groups, contagion jamborees? Mind you, if more Argentinians understood that the Brits can make a party out of Tupperware, perhaps they wouldn't get so hot under the collar.
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posted Jul 10, 2009 1:25 PM by Nick Parker
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updated Jul 11, 2009 3:28 PM
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Confusion reins. While most of the country relished the impromptu "sanitary holiday", the autonomous city of Buenos Aires went about its business more or less as normal. Except the press couldn't allow that, so they had to paint a worrying picture.
At one point the reporter actually claims that the city is "half empty", an interesting observation that could just as easily have been reworded, given the need for hope in these trying times, to: "Despite the crumbling of the very fabric of civilization, the city remains half full." Unfortunately the vid cuts out after that, so I don't know if she actually got an optimist or anybody else to counteract her appraisal, so the upshot is, we may never have a balanced assessment of the day. The comments section of the page, at least the bit I could be arsed to read, was more phlegmatic, and seemed to make the point that most people went to work, and panic is the plaything of provincial ponces.
Elsewhere in the news, we got a shipment of 100,000 doses of medication from Switzerland. Alone that might seem like a drop in the ocean (Switzerland, ocean...geddit!!) but we've got more coming from Burkina Faso, the Kingdom of Bhutan and the Land where the Jumblies Live over the coming days, so we'll soon have around 600,000 doses, more than enough for 40 million people with God on their side.
The same article puts our current death toll at 82, and the number of cases at 18,300.
I insist, that many people die on the roads here in four days, and they don't declare emergency measures and buy expensive shit from Swiss drug dealers.
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posted Jul 8, 2009 3:27 PM by Nick Parker
DON'T PANIC! We've found the answer. It's very simple; when confronted by an unstoppable pandemic, all you need to do is have a public holiday.
We've got tomorrow off anyway for independence day, so to give us a four day sanitary cushion (not to be confused with a four-day sanitary towel) we've been given Friday off too. Really, a sanitary cushion between what? How is it going to help? What will it do? I DON'T UNDERSTAND! It won't make a jot of difference. CONTAINMENT IS OVER! Fucking DO something. Stop trying to contain something that is already EVERYWHERE. Shutting everything didn't work in Mexico. It won't work here. You fucking MORONS.
At least the porteños are showing some signs of intelligence: the Buenos Aires authorities have refused to adhere to the ridiculous idea. And I have to say, without wishing to cause offence, it's a pretty typical response: shut it off, drink some mate, lie around a bit and see if the problem doesn't just kind of go away.
That is all very easy for me to say, of course. I'm on holiday anyway. I got up at 1:30pm and watched a movie with the kids. And I haven't got swine flu, so maybe it does work.
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posted Jul 7, 2009 10:47 AM by Nick Parker
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updated Jul 7, 2009 11:02 AM
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I meant to post this the other day but forgot. Here's sanitation at its finest: the measures taken to disinfect the offices of Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, the head of the Buenos Aires cabinet, after he contracted H1N1*.
Again, world, watch and learn. Watch and learn. This footage might just save your life.
*In case you're worried about Rodríguez Larreta, he's back at work after laying hands on Tamiflu for himself and his family in record time. Little is known about the whereabouts of the masked cleaner.
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posted Jul 6, 2009 7:31 PM by Nick Parker
I know it's 11:30pm and I should be gawping at the telly instead of barfing on here, but I can't help dwelling on the words of Mexican flu boffin Alejandro Macías when he said: "Argentina is the global epicentre now, and the northern hemisphere countries are looking at us in this mirror: that the same scenario will be reflected in the north during their forthcoming winter, and we have come to learn."
That's nice, isn't it? You've come to learn. I don't personally blame Macías; to be honest, I'm very glad the guy's come here to have his say. But the fact is that a pandemic broke in Mexico in what can only be considered perfect timing to coincide with the southern winter. And what's in the south, predominantly? Underdevelopment.
What better way to study a pandemic and analyse the various strategies available to combat it than to try it, real world? After all, the developed countries will have their vaccine before seasonal flu strikes. In fact, how many stocks have been prematurely bought up in the north which could have served the south in our hour of wintery need? August will still help us here. Yet according to the Guardian article, the UK placed an order for two doses for every member of the population, while one may be enough. Talk about sucking up a supply that could well be distributed to more urgent cases down here before the temperature plummets north of the equator. Do I have to be the one to say: "Selfish cunts"?
The fact that the Government here is doing a catastrophic job of handling things is effectively beyond doubt. But that doesn't exclude the possibility of an audacious attempt to take computer modelling of pandemia to a whole new level: test it on the south, stock up on vaccines in the north and watch them dissolve in panic.
None of the above is meant to diminish the pain and loss brought about by deaths in northern hemisphere countries. And with the exception of the preceeding sentence and the external links: None of this is true, but it's exactly how it is.
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posted Jul 6, 2009 5:22 PM by Nick Parker
So we now have 60 confirmed deaths, which might as well be 600 for all the faith we're seeing placed in the Ministry of Truth <see below>.
We've also leaped from 1500 confirmed cases on July 1 to around about 105,000 today, an extraordinary statistical burp given the time that has passed between the first figure and the second. Apparently H1N1 is now responsible for 90pc of contemporary flu cases in Argentina. Cool.
All of this is great news for mask manufacturers, who are working round the clock to catch up with demand. I notice from the video in the link above that they don't bother to wear their own product, as if a clearer indication were required that masks are pointless for most of us.
But most importantly for a country famous for taking something which sprung up somewhere else and then doing it better, we've been hailed as the global epicentre by the man who ought to know. Alejandro Macías, who worked during Mexico's crisis, has arrived in Argentina and told us that we rock. Apparently, everyone is watching us now, including the developed world up north, to see how we react and how badly we get buttfucked. Watch and learn, world, watch and learn.
But are you watching? Is there anybody out there?
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posted Jul 6, 2009 11:06 AM by Nick Parker
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updated Jul 6, 2009 5:20 PM
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Some of the deceased are not yet cold, and most of the rest of us don't even have a fever, but already there's a kerfuffle about who exactly we should be blaming for all this.
La Nación today carries a story about two lawyers suing the Government, supposedly because it "delayed measures to stop the advance of the virus because of the elections".
Which is a bit stupid, because, as everyone knows, this is a pandemic, and, according to the Peter Sandman Risk Communication website: "Experts agree that collectively they [containment measures] can help slow the spread of the
flu virus, but they cannot stop it. As far as we know, nothing can stop
it....An influenza pandemic is unstoppable."
It goes on: "When governments adopt a swine flu containment strategy, they are
sending a signal – intentional or not – that they are actually going to
stop the virus, that they can prevent swine flu from infecting their
people. In the absence of explicit messages to the contrary, the public
absorbs this signal. As a result, the public is over-reassured early
on, and more angry, more mistrustful, and less confident in government
competence later."
That's certainly the case here, where messages have been poorly handled, nay fumbled, nay completely ballsed-up, and the containment strategy, which has clearly outlived its usefulness, was a half-baked shambles from the word go, with no one knowing what was going on apart from the fact that we were surely all going to die horribly. How much of this can be put down to genuine, Soviet-era censorship, and how much of it is Peter Sandman's "premature over-reassurance", this correspondent is not qualified to decide.
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