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This project has been quite a ride.
I never would have guessed we would be invited (3/08) as experts in mass communication to give advice to the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services.
I never would have guessed that we would be viewed in over 145 countries per month.
I never would have guessed that so many great individuals would join and donate thousands of hours of time to help strangers that they would never meet.
We can ask and get interviews with experts from all over the world. We are quoted in major news media as a source. Last week we were one of a very few online media invited to participate in a question and answer session with representatives from the the Dept. of Homeland Security, the White House, and the CDC.
How did this happen? Every time someone says yes to an interview I am still taken aback. Us. Not a medical site. Not an institution. Not a political or religious affiliation. No previous media experience. So why......?
It is our spirit. They have seen what is in our hearts and they have come.
It is in this spirit that we continue to track individual cases. We know these numbers represent only a fraction of the actual cases but they are a window into what is happening.
Our only real hope of finding out what this virus is doing around the world.
Detailed information about clinical presentation, treatments, patient contacts, underlying conditions, etc. are almost never reported in news reports. The tracking here is not confined to strict definitions of “an infected case”. We track all kinds of infectious diseases, often based only on suspected cases. Sometimes we find that some infectious diseases are misidentified or diagnosed incorrectly. Sometimes we find critical information in non-English language sources.
Through the diligence and perseverance of FluTrackers members and other posters in flublogia we find trends that may not yet be recognizable to public health officials that are struggling to interpret their local or regional data.
For some flutrackers, there is another reason to track cases, a reason that relates to personal satisfaction and actualization. As the current pandemic gains momentum, it is easy for a feeling of helplessness to sweep over an individual. We are seeing a wide range of estimates for the case fatality rate - some of them approaching, or even exceeding, the level of the 1918 pandemic. We are also seeing dire warnings for a more virulent second wave in a few months. Despite news reports to the contrary, we are starting to see a potential trend - healthy young people becoming severely ill and dying from H1N1.
Learning more about a pandemic, making physical and mental preparations, and tracking influenza cases can be personally empowering in light of these pandemic conditions. Being able to track cases and contribute to FluTrackers allows some of us to feel like we are “making a difference”.
It also allows us to feel that we have not yet relinquished control of our own future to this pandemic outbreak.
Thank you to everyone who has helped us on this project to assist our fellow man.
"Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
I never would have guessed we would be invited (3/08) as experts in mass communication to give advice to the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services.
I never would have guessed that we would be viewed in over 145 countries per month.
I never would have guessed that so many great individuals would join and donate thousands of hours of time to help strangers that they would never meet.
We can ask and get interviews with experts from all over the world. We are quoted in major news media as a source. Last week we were one of a very few online media invited to participate in a question and answer session with representatives from the the Dept. of Homeland Security, the White House, and the CDC.
How did this happen? Every time someone says yes to an interview I am still taken aback. Us. Not a medical site. Not an institution. Not a political or religious affiliation. No previous media experience. So why......?
It is our spirit. They have seen what is in our hearts and they have come.
It is in this spirit that we continue to track individual cases. We know these numbers represent only a fraction of the actual cases but they are a window into what is happening.
Our only real hope of finding out what this virus is doing around the world.
Detailed information about clinical presentation, treatments, patient contacts, underlying conditions, etc. are almost never reported in news reports. The tracking here is not confined to strict definitions of “an infected case”. We track all kinds of infectious diseases, often based only on suspected cases. Sometimes we find that some infectious diseases are misidentified or diagnosed incorrectly. Sometimes we find critical information in non-English language sources.
Through the diligence and perseverance of FluTrackers members and other posters in flublogia we find trends that may not yet be recognizable to public health officials that are struggling to interpret their local or regional data.
For some flutrackers, there is another reason to track cases, a reason that relates to personal satisfaction and actualization. As the current pandemic gains momentum, it is easy for a feeling of helplessness to sweep over an individual. We are seeing a wide range of estimates for the case fatality rate - some of them approaching, or even exceeding, the level of the 1918 pandemic. We are also seeing dire warnings for a more virulent second wave in a few months. Despite news reports to the contrary, we are starting to see a potential trend - healthy young people becoming severely ill and dying from H1N1.
Learning more about a pandemic, making physical and mental preparations, and tracking influenza cases can be personally empowering in light of these pandemic conditions. Being able to track cases and contribute to FluTrackers allows some of us to feel like we are “making a difference”.
It also allows us to feel that we have not yet relinquished control of our own future to this pandemic outbreak.
Thank you to everyone who has helped us on this project to assist our fellow man.
"Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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