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It makes you wonder what will wipe us out first - Nature, or the Crazy Muslims?
Witness the attack on central London a couple of days ago.
The Earth is on a knife edge, in some ways.
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Lack of trust is what I believe will wipe us out in the end, along with nature.
A few of my colleagues have been down with bugs recently, and have found out they will not be paid anything for the days they had off. No doubt next time they are too ill to work, they will come into the office regardless. I remember a time when I took a few days off during my probation in the mid eighties for a bug and was paid my full salary for those days, as my employer didn't want to risk me spreading what I had.
Problem is I work in Bath Spa, where it is too expensive to live, and several of us have to pay extortionate amounts of money to commute to the city by train, which takes a large chunk of our wages, so a single day without pay could make the difference between being able to pay our bills and not being able to pay them.
I also wonder about the railways too, if they will end up killing us one day, I can't believe the state some of the trains are in nowadays (did anyone think they would be better run privately?).
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Thankfully, I've always had a job that paid sick leave - I'm now retired - but I see how things are changing - & not for the better.
There was a lot of abuse of paid sick pay, I saw that & it is the other side of the coin. I did not abuse it myself.
But the point that it is better to keep germs to yourself, is a good one.
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"bobmeades wrote:
"What may be of more concern, is the warming of the north pole - just below freezing I understand"
There a graph and a map. This is HUGE !! This ice moved more in the last 20 years than it has in the previous 100 years. This video is very scary, especially since this is happening now.
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Another "Superbug" in five USA states. First identified in Japan in 2009.
The fungus called Candida auris is a harmful form of yeast. Scientists say it can be hard to identify with standard lab tests. U.S. health officials sounded alarms last year because two of the three kinds of commonly used antifungal drugs have little effect.
"It's acting like a superbug" bacteria, said Dr. Paige Armstrong of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Most vulnerable are fragile hospital patients — particularly newborns and the elderly. It tends to be diagnosed in patients after they've been in hospitals for several weeks. The fungus can infect wounds, ears and the bloodstream.
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bobmeades wrote:
It sounds like a very nasty bug, amazing how they can develop in hospitals.
Today's buildings are like giant Petrie dishes. Big buildings with sealed windows, recirclated air.
Remember the movie Outbreak. He looks up and sat it's going through the ventilation system.
Two Toronto Canada hospitals were quarentined with SARS. The 14 hour plane ride , it had enough time to spread.
Someone decided it would be more efficient to cool and warm buildings, if you didn't open the windows.
Now we have poor indoor air quality issues -'Sick Building Syndrome'
Hospitals -- how is it that the man in Nebraska with Ebola, his family didn't get sick, but two nurses caring for him did?
Infections at hospitals --bad. Today's chemicals to clean , not effective s bleach/soap and water.
Patients go in for a scope exam, then they called back because it wasn't cleaned properly and they are infected.
Small clinics re-using needles to save money.
Remember in the first episode--the Forth Horseman, Dr Andrew (Chris Reich) tells Jenny --the staff is coming down with it .......What happens when the healthcare workers aren't protected and given proper equipment??
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H7N9 avian flu virus
"Bird flu outbreaks this spring in Tennessee, Alabama and Kentucky have led officials to euthanize more than 200,000 animals. They are different from the strain of the H7N9 virus currently spreading in Asia, according to Agriculture officials."
Interesting and scary.
Plus we have a measles outbreak in Minnesota.
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The computer virus problem, on Friday 12th May - showed just how dependent we have become on computers & the internet. Did Terry Nation foresee that? The UK NHS was hit pretty badly - I think the USA, is better at keeping it's computers secure.
Thankfully, the clever chap who runs this Blog, spotted a way to "Sink" this virus, but not before it had done a lot of damage.
Last edited by bobmeades (14/5/2017 6:38 am)
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New York is Ground Zero for a deadly super-bug
The deadliest superbug yet — Candida auris — is invading hospitals and nursing homes, killing a staggering 60 percent of patients it infects. New York City is Ground Zero, with three-quarters of the cases.
Some exposed patients don’t succumb to infection but silently carry the germ and infect others. A patient treated first in New York City unknowingly carried it upstate to Rochester General Hospital, where he died weeks ago. The lethal germ has also reached New Jersey, Michigan, Illinois and Massachusetts, with 122 cases reported so far this year, up from only six last year.