Suspected swine flu at Glastonbury

[Geri]

The foot and mouth was horrendous - they moved Ashton Court to Hengrove (which it didn't really recover from and played a large part in killing it off, IMO) and I couldn't cycle to my dads house all that summer because fields were cordoned off along the cycle track.

 

[free spirit]

Are virologists and the WHO specifically advising that the entire UK festival season gets shut down because two cases were identified at Glastonbury though???

I think free spirit is being a TAD pessimistic .....

I'm inclined to be with Giles here, frankly.

simply stating facts sadly.

you'll probably want to reread my statement though and see that I said 'there's a chance that...', I didn't say that it definately would happen or anything.

personally I don't think they should cancel the festival season because I can't see any real possibility that swine flue will not get to pandemic proportions in this country anyway... the horse has well and truely bolted IMO, but it'd be entirely like the government to do fuck all, then panic when they realise they've fucked up, and put the country into lockdown in an attempt to be seen to be doing something.

I also haven't seen any evidence that it is significantly more deadly than most other strains of flu (it is more deadly, but it's much closer to standard death rates than to those of 1918-19 afaik), so there's a danger of over reacting.

current advice to business from business link...

Mass gatherings

Currently the government is not advising avoidance of mass gatherings or social events and there are no restrictions in place. This includes sporting events, concerts and other public events.

so far so good, but the fact that they have a section relating to mass gatherings kinda indicates that one of the control measures under consideration is the banning or restriction on mass gatherings, which would include festivals.

also, several areas have now moved from 'containment' into 'outbreak management' strategies, which essentially means that in those areas they've had to accept that it's now not possible to contain it in those areas, which makes me pretty nervous about the measures they'll now take to try to isolate it in those areas...

'Containment' to 'outbreak management'

Only areas with high levels of swine flu are moving from 'containment' to 'outbreak management'. Most areas are still in the containment phase.
In areas that have moved to the containment phase:

• swine flu may be identified by clinical diagnosis rather than laboratory testing
• anti-viral drugs will still be offered to all people with symptoms
• tracing the contacts of people with swine flu and the preventative use of anti-viral drugs will stop

Secretary of State for Health, Andy Burnham said: "While containment has worked very well in its early stages, we’ve been clear all along that it was highly likely that we would be unable to prevent the spread of swine flu indefinitely.
"A containment strategy remains in place, although we are allowing more flexibility in areas where more community transmission has taken place."

[source]

 

[elbows]

I dont know for sure but there seem to be some contradicting possibilities regarding containment plans in areas where it is spreading widely in the community.

For example I sometimes hear that once its widespread, they wont bother with school closures as the horse has already bolted.

On the other hand there will clearly be more interest in trying not to make the situation worse, and general heightened sense of awareness, once the spread is much broader. Personally I would have pushed containment a little more in the early stages, and would not want to rule out anything that could help later on.

Come a very large level of illness in the winter, the logistical problems caused by mass absenteeism will create many situations which may necessitate all sorts of changes to day to day life, its hard to be sure.

Cancellation of mass gatherings are certainly in most pandemic plans, but whether they will be used or recommended by WHO at some stage is rather unclear. A lot of the planning had scenarios with a flu strain that had a higher mortality rate, in which case the balance between economics and public health measures would be different, making draconian measures more likely.

Its not just about what government chooses to do, a lot is going to come down to how many young and healthy people are hospitalised or die, and how this stuff is reported. Under certain scenarios public perceptions could change a lot rather quickly, and there could be demands for stronger action, or not.

Argentina currently has some bad swine flu problems, and splits within government about how to deal with it. Health Minister recently resigned due to differences of opinion with others in government, probably wanted more draconian measures than the other wanted, although I think an emergency has now been declared there anyway. Some people there are moaning that the government should have sent stronger messages before their recent elections, as the election probably aided transmission.

 

[elbows]

I also haven't seen any evidence that it is significantly more deadly than most other strains of flu (it is more deadly, but it's much closer to standard death rates than to those of 1918-19 afaik), so there's a danger of over reacting.

Yes, its very difficult to get the balance right. Its quite possible that it has the same or even lower death rate than normal flu, but if a lot more people catch it, or it mostly targets the opposite groups of people to normal (eg young not old), then its impact and total number of deaths may far outweight what we see in normal flu seasons or epidemic seasons.

 

[elbows]

We also have to bear in mind that swine flu related to a specific gathering makes for the sort of news that media finds it easy to write about.

So now we have moved on from Glastonbury to Wimbledon:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8128759.stm

The number of Wimbledon staff told to stay at home because of flu-like symptoms has risen to 28, the All England Club has said.
Fears of a possible swine flu outbreak were raised on Monday after four ball boys and girls became unwell, although three are now back at work.
A newspaper has reported that two Slovakian players and a US competitor were believed to have the virus.

 

[_float_]

@ free spirit

...who is saying that festivals are 'high risk'?

& are they seen as any higher risk than schools, hospitals, underground trains, airports, theatres, Wimbledon crowds or places of work?

 

[free spirit]

@ free spirit

...who is saying that festivals are 'high risk'?

& are they seen as any higher risk than schools, hospitals, underground trains, airports, theatres, Wimbledon crowds or places of work?

well, one of the aspects of work I cover for festivals is working as a freelance festival safety officer, so it's a part of my job to be able to assess all types of risk associated with festivals, and if I get that wrong, and something goes badly wrong, then it'd be me not the licensee that ended up in court for it... so, I'm saying that festivals are high risk activities, make of that what you will.

I also covered the spread of diseases as a small part of my degree (a degree that some use to go on to become environmental health officers, though it was more environment than health based), and can remember enough of that to know that large gatherings of people are classed as being high risk factors in the spread of diseases such as the flu, particularly when they involve people travelling from lots of different places to the event, and they involved people being in close proximity to a lot of different people... ie festivals.

also, yes I'd place festivals higher than any of your other examples with the possible exception of wimbledon, though I think festivals would still rank higher than any of them. The reason being that people travel from so many different places to festivals, and spend so much time in close proximity to so many other different people from so many different places, that it's very likely that anyone going to a festival with swine flu would pass it on to many many more people (10s, possibly hundreds) from many different previously unaffected parts of the country.

worth noting that glastonbury actually had a plan in place to mitigate the risk associated with swine flu, which as far as I can work out, seems to have been based around immediate isolation and containment of anyone onsite reporting with symptoms that could potentially be swine flu, followed by a medivac offsite. This is fine for a festival like glastonbury that has full onsite medical facilites to rival many cottage hospitals, with a huge army of volunteer doctors, nurses etc. It's not very practical for most smaller festivals who simply don't have the medical resources onsite to enable this to happen, or would need to pay significant additional extra money for the increased medical resources to mitigate the risk to the satisfaction of the local environmental health inspector / NHS etc.

Bottom line though, is that if significant numbers of people end up being diagnosed with swine flu, with the source being traced back to Glastonbury, then it'd be virtually impossible for any other festival to even attempt to win the arguement that they could mitigate the risk sufficiently by measures other than shutting the festival completely, as glastonbury has the best medical resources and infrastructure of any festival in the UK. Hence my opening statement.

 

[Giles]

several festivals were cancelled during the foot and mouth epidemic, yet no festival goers were at risk from catching foot and mouth....

basically festivals are seen as a high risk because they involve thousands / tens of thousands of people travelling from all over the country bringing their strains of the different viruses together then throwing themselves together in crammed marquees / crowds where airborn viral infections such as the flu can easily spread, and then transported back to the peoples previously uninfected home areas.

the 3 days of drink, drugs eating badly and not sleeping much also hugely lowers people's imune systems ability to fight off the infection, making normally very healthy people more prone to succombing to the worst effects of the disease / more likely to be infected in the first place.

basically though, the danger mainly isn't to the festival goers themselves who would probably mostly be strong enough to recover, it's the threat posed to the young, elderly and vulnerable nationally and internationally in the autumn and winter should the disease be spread throughout the country by the summers festival goers, and basically become so widespread within the population that it could no longer be contained.

As someone who's entire next 3 months of work is based upon the festival season not getting cancelled, I've properly got my fingers crossed that it won't happen. I'm also painfully aware though that if it does go ahead, and swine flu really does take proper hold in this country this winter and fuck loads of elderly people die as a result, then it'd be pretty likely that the festival season paid a large part in contributing to this happening (along with other large gatherings of people from around the country).

The difference is that there isn't any real likelihood of preventing the spread of flu like there was with foot and mouth disease. I suspect flu will spread round the country regardless of how many "gatherings" they cancelled - people travel for work, study and to see family etc. They can't stop that. All a programme of cancelling festivals, sporting events would do is make everyone's life miserable and achieve nothing but slowing down the inevitable by a few weeks or months.

Anyway, I would rate going to a festival as more important than getting the flu.

Giles..

 

[newbie]

worth noting that glastonbury actually had a plan in place to mitigate the risk associated with swine flu, which as far as I can work out, seems to have been based around immediate isolation and containment of anyone onsite reporting with symptoms that could potentially be swine flu, followed by a medivac offsite.

that's pretty much what happened, aiui, followed by bagging and removal of their stuff and risk assessments & decontamination of everybody/everything that had contact. As I used some of that equipment immediately afterwards I rather hope it was properly decontaminated, but so far, touch wood, I have no fluelike symptoms.

a general question: I presume it's better for an individual to catch this flu in the summer than later in the year when it's cold, wet and dark and we're all more susceptible to colds and all the rest. I don't know that, but it seems a reasonable presumption since by and large we all seem a bit stronger and healthier in the summer.

If that's the case, is it better for the herd for the flu to spread now rather than wait for winter?

 

[elbows]

Maybe, although one of the main advantages to getting it now is that the health service is not yet overloaded. But if everyone got it now, that advantage would soon disappear.

 

[laptop]

The difference is that there isn't any real likelihood of preventing the spread of flu

The rising number of swine flu cases mean trying to contain the virus is no longer an option, ministers say.

Health Secretary Andy Burnham announced that the emergency response would now move to a new "treatment" phase.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8130097.stm 13:02

 

[Riklet]

I lost my voice at glasto and got a grotty cough which is still going on now, very horrible and phlegmy, although I think it's clearing up a bit (liquorice and thyme syrup for the win!), and the sore throat has mainly faded. Never lost my voice so quickly or badly before though, and I was working on bars, so whatever nasty I currently have has probably been spread a'plenty!

Not had any muscle aches or really nasty symptoms though, just a bit tired and run down, kinda to be expected though. Hahhh shit, i bet there'll be fucking "i caught swine flu at glasto 09!" t-shirts next year....

 

[Mooncat]

eek! Just found out a guy I was camped next to has got it