Pueblog USa
Friday, June 30, 2006
Tularemia
It’s not an old fashioned Irish sing-along song.
It’s actually a dangerous disease.
It resides, i.e., lives in rodents. Things like mice and rats and rabbits. Indeed, it’s possible that a cat in Pueblo West caught it from a rabbit that was carrying it.
According to the Pueblo City-County Health Department, the symptoms of this disease are as follows:
People with tularemia may have symptoms that include a skin ulcer, sudden fever, chills, headache, body aches, dry cough, and progressive weakness. Symptoms of tularemia in animals, specifically cats and dogs, are nearly identical to the symptoms of plague. Cats generally become lethargic; have a high fever and little appetite. They may also experience pneumonia and swollen lymph nodes. Like with plague, dogs generally do not show any symptoms of the disease.
So be aware that this dangerous disease is in the area’s rodents. Keep a close eye on your pet cats to see if they start acting poorly.
Additionally, maybe this will be another incentive for the City Fathers to finally act on establishing mandatory trash service for residences and businesses. Rodents, as in mice and rats, thrive in piles of trash.
For more information on what to do to protect yourself and your pets, contact the Pueblo City-County Health Departement at (719) 583-4531 or visit the Pueblo City-County Health Department’s website at http://www.pueblohealthdept.org or visit the Centers for Disease Control’s website at http://www.cdc.gov.
Thursday, June 15, 2006
The Pandemic TabEx (Part 2)
Some concerns.
About yesterday’s table exercise for city and county agencies regarding the possiblity of a ballistic form of bird flu; something akin to what happened in 1918…..
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
The Pandemic TabEx (Part 1)
An interesting little exercise, that.
Just got out of the Pueblo City-County Health Department’s (PCCHD) Table Exercise for city and county agencies to discuss and plan for the advent of a human form of bird flu.
Don’t panic! PREPARE!
That’s the first and foremost message that I think came out of the meeting. And that’s to everyone.
The chance of bird flu going ‘ballistic’ IS there. No one has a good idea of how likely it is to happen, but if it does happen the most important aspect of surviving it is to BE PREPARED. And by that I, and everyone I heard at the exercise, mean to have the essentials of life readily on hand the MOMENT you hear it has gone ballistic. Why do I say that? Well, because it is the general consensus of the attendees that the various government and other agencies we’ve come to rely on are likely to be overwhelmed by the work effort necessary to do their most basic jobs.
Consider what the effect would be on a hospital if 30% or more of their staff—doctors, nurses, maintenance, clerks—were NOT available because they were sick with the flu themselves. Then again there are the police and fire departments. At this staffing level, they are not going to be as ready to help you as they are right now, when they have their normal work force. Not only that, but consider such everyday activities as grocery and drug stores. These sorts of places might become great places to become infected with the flu yourself, with all the people that pass through them and their clerks handling money that could have been handled by people carrying the bug and passing that money to you. Or consider the people standing in line with you coughing and sneezing.
It gives you pause to consider how frequently you’d want to go to such a place.
So, what are these essentials for life? And how do you prepare yourself and your family to have them?
Please excuse me while I drop back into a prior life experience mode; military logistician, if you will.
Looking at them from this perspective, it’s pretty easy to classify them in terms of the Army’s classes of supply. And here they are:
Monday, June 05, 2006
OHNO Quarterly General Meeting [June 2006]
Info you can use for the 6/6/06 meeting.
The June 2006 quarterly general meeting of OHNO will be held tomorrow night at Temple Emanuel, which is north of 13th and Grand intersection.
The discussions will circle around matters relating to the development of Special Interest Groups (SIGs) inside of OHNO.
Personally, I’m interested in creating a Gardening group and one dedicated to Cooking. The latter to be something along the lines of the smash hit progressive dinner party from last December.
Time 6:30 pm.
Hope to see you other OHNOians there.