“Genetic analysis shows the flu strain is a never-before-seen mixture of swine, human and avian viruses.”
The little buggers have been swapping bodily fluids again.
The fact most of the dead [in Mexico] were aged between 25 and 45 was seen as a worrying sign linked to pandemics, as seasonal flu tends to be more deadly among the elderly and the very young. […]
The last flu pandemic was in 1968 when “Hong Kong” flu killed about a million people globally.
But every cloud has a silver lining, every threat and disaster its entrepreneurial beneficiary:
DVD rental stores said customers poured in to rent movies on Friday night so they could huddle inside for the weekend.
(Off topic, it’s kind of a sad sign of the times, the implication that people can’t stay home without a DVD. It makes some part of me snark that this recession hasn’t gone nearly deep enough — not even in Mexico.)
Ambiance 
Ron said,
April 25, 2009 at 9:33 am
hmmm…Bug blather is not increasing the Ambiance!
amba12 said,
April 25, 2009 at 9:39 am
True, but sometimes the world intrudes. We’ll pull the blinds again.
Icepick said,
April 25, 2009 at 11:23 am
My favorite headline about this story was on Drudge: “US Won’t Close Mexican Border”
Like they COULD! ROFL!
RW Rogers said,
April 25, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Personally, I’d rather snuggle than huddle, but that’s just me I guess.
Callimachus said,
April 26, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Maybe this will turn out to be the next Black Death. But so far I’ve seen no justification for the media treating it that way. As far as I can tell based on the terrible reporting being done, almost everyone who gets it recovers and it responds to existing treatments.
Also, as far as I can tell, none of the major media outlets has bothered to discover, or report, what the NORMAL rates of flu infection and deaths from flu are in Mexico City in April. How the hell can you know if this is a problem or not if you don’t know what the baseline is?
amba12 said,
April 27, 2009 at 12:34 am
I wondered whether this flu seemed deadlier in Mexico because more people in the 25-45 age group smoke, or because they are not as well nourished. You’re right, the people who’ve gotten it here have routinely recovered, all but one who was hospitalized. Which has to be standard operating procedure for the flu.