Totally true, I think I actually had it a few weeks ago, and I got over it just fine... took me a while cause I'm not used to getting sick though, my Immune system has been total crap for the last year since I've been living off of fast food and hot pockets.

you want to know what I think about this? This can go one of 3 ways.

1) H1N1 mutates to no longer infect humans, and instead infects other animals.
2) H1N1 is a natural virus, while other more deadly ones seem not to be. if people catch on to this either H1N1 will be cured, or existing man made viruses will be made more contagious. #2 is kind of tinfoil hat, i know, I just thought I'd throw it out, for a little humor
3) ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

I'm seriously going with 3 here. Swine flu infecting animals does not change a damn thing at the moment. the reason for this is A) maybe it could always infect others, and it was never noticed until now, because noone thought about it, or B) H1N1 has mutated, which makes it what, H1N2, or H2N1 or something...

If it is now in animals because of rapid mutation, we have a problem. you know, the same one that we feared would happen with bird-flu. the fear that it would be a rapidly mutating virus. It could quickly mutate to become fatal, and even if it doesn't It could mutate faster than we can develop medicine for it. Worst case scenario for that, it mutates faster that the body can produce antibodies.

At this point I believe it's to early to tell if this is a new, rapid mutation, or if it always could spread cross species, and we just never noticed. If It just happened to be a virus that could infect cross species before, we're safe. If it's fast mutating, we're ♥♥♥♥.

TL:DR
Read the last paragraph, directly above this point.

People worried about their pets:

The Flu in your pets (which happens) is rarely fatal.

H1N1 in your pets is even less fatal.

The reason people 'panic' about H1N1 is because the flu innoculations that go out EVERY SINGLE YEAR were designed for the wrong strain of flu, and the flu ended up spreading a bazillion times faster than normal flu. It's all a guessing game as to what flu will be "the big one" this year. All the other flus have equally scary names too. To make a few up, "B2P0" last year and "H7N1395" the year before that. I've never gotten my innoculations because FLUs ARE NOT DEADLY and I AM NOT A ♥♥♥♥ PUSSY. On top of that, I'm not even allowed to GET the innoculations. To quote a sign on the medical clinic a block away from me:

"All flu sufferers: Drink plenty of fluids and get rest. If you are over 70 or under 5 years old you may be at risk for complications; please come inside."

You see, if your immune system is new or weak, flus can be life-threatening -- as is any other virus.

The neat thing is, H1N1 had an outbreak in.. the 30s was it? so anyone who was alive back then and caught the virus is now immune. That means most elderly aren't being affected by this, which drastically drives down the death rate.

However, fox news got a hold of this information, and pseudo-correctly stated

"H1N1 WILL KILL YOUR CHILDREN"

mass hysteria in 3, 2

^this. The first guy to die of it over here (after 500+ cases, half of which had passed by the time they were diagnosed) was overweight, diabetic, had asthma, along with heart and liver (or was it kidney?) issues.

Also, remember when the first outbreak happened in Mexico, and like 50 people died out of 200 contractions - thus being huge odds of death?

Well that outbreak happened in a critical care facility where they didn't cordon off the patients from each other. They all were burn victims or had late-stage aids or something I dunno

Nobody I know is worried by swine flu at all, I think this 'mass hysteria' is just a couple people being overly dramatic, and a some extremely gullible people.

As for swine flu not being deadly to pets, thats a relief.

Trouble is, those couple of people are either in high places or news presenters (newscasters?).

A couple of my sister's young friends had H1N1 and they recovered in about a week. They were children mind you, andd no one was really worried.

Wow. I was wondering how long it would be before somebody posted this really ♥♥♥♥ lame and cliched joke that was funny years ago hilarious joke. Ooh, he's referencing Pandemic! Epic memez xD!


People are dumb. Fear sells.

Umm, H1N1 doen't kill you- It kills your immune system to allow other crap to come in... 's not fun. I haven't had H1N1, but I've had reglar flu, like, 5 times- I'M ONLY A FRESHMAN. So yeah, H1N1 won't kill ya- it's after-effects will if anything. And, Jered, if you're reading this (you'll know me, from Niles), theraflu doesn't cure you from it, it just covers up the symptoms.

Good for you. I get that 5 times in a year.

I'm sick all the time.

Wow- 5 times a year? That sucks really bad. Do you like, roll in disease? There's no way I can fathom getting sick that often. Sorry, bro.

It's really not that bad, seeing as how a flu consists of little more than slight headaches and sneezing (i.e. minor inconveniences, just like H1N1).

Inconveniences? I had chills, threw up every other second, couldn't keep anything down, had to take nyquill (hey, tastes like napalm), It sounds like you're really, REALLY used to the flu.

I *never* threw up from the flu. That means we're either talking about different things, or your immune system is even more ♥♥♥♥ up than mine.