If you thought it was over or under control, you were and are wrong. Same goes for the economic crisis. Same goes for Iran and Afghanistan. Same goes for Iraq. Same goes for natural disasters. If I’m psychic then November 11 will be one hell of a day and I don’t mean in the positive sense. That’s when my guts tell me it will begin.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama has declared 2009 H1N1 swine flu a national emergency, the White House said on Saturday.
The declaration will make it easier for U.S. medical facilities to handle a surge in flu patients by allowing the waiver of some requirements of Medicare, Medicaid and other federal health insurance programs as needed, the White House said in a statement.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday that swine flu has become widespread in 46 of the 50 U.S. states, a level comparable to the peak of ordinary flu seasons but far earlier and with more waves of infection expected.
Obama signed the statement on Friday night.
The White House statement said the declaration was intended to prepare the country in case of “a rapid increase in illness that may overburden health care resources.” It was similar to disaster declarations issued before hurricanes hit coastal areas.
“It’s important to note that this is a proactive measure — not a response to a new development,” an administration official said.
“H1N1 is moving rapidly, as expected. By the time regions or healthcare systems recognize they are becoming overburdened, they need to implement disaster plans quickly,” he said.
Seasonal flu normally peaks sometime between late November and early March and kills about 36,000 Americans in an average year.
Swine flu has hit young adults and children the hardest, while seasonal flu normally is more dangerous for people over age 65.
H1N1, declared a public health emergency earlier in the year, has killed more than 1,000 people in the United States and put more than 20,000 in the hospital since it emerged earlier this year, the CDC said. But health officials are quick to note that the actual number of cases cannot be measured.
The new declaration clears the way for waivers of federal requirements that, for example, could prevent hospitals from establishing off-site, alternate care facilities that could help them deal with emergency department demands, the White House said.
The Health and Human Services Department is trying to deliver vaccines against H1N1 but says production is falling short of projections because companies are having trouble making them.
HHS has also moved to make available stockpiles of antiviral drugs oseltamivir, made by Roche AG under the brand name Tamiflu, and zanamivir, an inhaled drug made by GlaxoSmithKline under the brand name Relenza.
On Friday the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization for an experimental new drug called peramivir, made by Biocryst Pharmaceuticals Inc and licensed to Shionogi & Co Ltd.
The authorization allows the intravenous drug to be used in hospitalized patients who cannot take pills or inhale Relenza or when Tamiflu or Relenza do not seem to be helping.
So suppose we all get through HN1-Fun! and the current path to the future we appear to be headed on continues. I think with all of the current technology out there we’re about to experience a major shift. After a major moral debate with myself I finally succumbed to curiosity and checked out Google Street View. I suppose one might argue it’s a big breach of privacy but a friend recently brought up a good point. You can walk down the street and see someones car or house too so what’s the big deal? Well, I think it’s what’s occuring in the background. The fact that this sort of technology even exists is pretty fascinating yet very frightening at the same time. I took a completely neutral opinion with me when I decided to zoom into street level on google maps. This technology is still in it’s infancy and it’s actually quite impressive. You can basically “drive” down any given street in any given town that Google has decided to record. If you’ve ever played games like Myst or Return to Zork you can compare those to what we have now with Street View. After a few years a version of Myst was created that allowed you to roam around freely in a 3D first person shooter style (like quake etc). So imagine a few years from now. If this sort of thing continues and say merges with something like this:
http://hackaday.com/2009/10/26/head-mounted-computer/ or even this: http://hackaday.com/2009/10/26/head-mounted-computer/
So say google street view becomes like the major real world gaming database. They open it up and allow people to create things in this Metaverse they’ve created. You’ve got people tied into the head mounted computers say racing virtual cars through the streets. They’ve already created algorithms to detect faces and license plates and blur them, so why not the same for real world objects vs virtual graphical objects?
Take this scenario for example. You and a few friends wonder into the local internet gaming cafe. You create a gaming session much like many multiplayer games kids are playing today. It’s like a chatroom. You then text a few of your other friends and announce that there’s going to be a big AR (augmented reality: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmented_reality) race on google street view. You check your phone and can see their location so you program the coordinates into the racing session and tell them it’s about to begin. The friends who are on location plug their portable headsets into their phones or whatever personal computer devices may exist at this point and grab a seat on the nearest park bench. They are then able to connect to your session and become spectators of the virtual race.
Who knows. It could even end up like a giant public internet. An augmented reality layer placed over reality. A strange concept I suppose but entirely possible. Or here’s one. I bought this little remote control helicopter. Suppose you could fit a little 3D camera into the cockpit of the helicopter and throw on the headset which would then connect via wifi or some derivative and allow you to see from the helicopter as if you were flying it. You could lift off and fly right past yourself! I think with the high speed connections coming out and current streaming video tech out there now something like this wouldn’t be too far off.
Yeah, I dunno, that’s all I’ve got for now. This whole experience really got the rusty gears spinning for a little while.
Oh yeah hehehe. There’s also this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es52WQKLumI
I love the soundtrack and the sound effects.