H1N1

Today my small group leader was on vacation (at Disney World!) and so we got to meet with Dr. Helinski. Dr. H is a pediatric infectious disease doctor. Naturally, the conversation flowed to its inevitable terminus: H1N1. Documented cases have increased rapidly (like, 5-fold) in the past week at one of the hospitals nearby, so we were discussing the ramifications of this early surge in Influenza A (H1N1 is technically an influenza A - just one we've no immunity for because of its porcine origin).

August is quite early for a surge in influenza. Usually the surge begins around November and cases begin to peter out by February. My question for Dr. H was, does this mean that this is the surge or could a second increase in infection rate be superimposed on this prior high infection rate, creating a super high infection rate in November. He said he didn't know but it's certainly possible.

Here are some other little things about Influenza A. They think this one will require two sequential vaccine shots to confer resistance. If the vaccine isn't ready until October and this Flu A is surging now, the vaccine will be too late to make a big difference. You have probably heard that this flu isn't particularly virulent, which is great. It does have the potential to mutate into something more virulent. If you get the current, milder form of this flu, the immune reaction you generate will protect you from even a mutated virulent strain. All this points to go ahead and get sick and don't worry about it.

However, the more human hosts the virus has, the more opportunities it has to mutate into something more virulent. So from a host-limiting perspective and from a population productivity perspective, it would be helpful for people to get the vaccine to stop the spread of the flu.

Those are just the things we discussed.

I will add that when we went to Vivian's ice cream social at her pre-K classroom on Friday, they informed us that one kid had gone home after throwing up and there were ominous rumblings of upset stomach from Vivian's best buddy, Beatrix. Beatrix looked positively peaked, draped on her mother's shoulder. Tonight Vivian complained of an upset stomach. Then, during sing and pray I noticed she felt warm. She had a 101 degree temperature. And now Mazie and I both feel a little queasy. Ohhhhh, boy....here we go!