"It's a bug that's going around"

Akaran_D · Post by **Akaran_D** » September 28, 2004, 1:18 pm

Ok, here's a question. Every time you turn around and you hear about someone being sick, you usually get the normal "Oh, it's just the new bug going around." Ok, fine - here's the question.

Are there any online resources that anyone here knows of that are free to the public that will LIST exactly what known viruses are going around in a given area? IE: Paitent is treated, diagnosed. Doctor or nurse enters that diagnoses into a online system (IE: Male, 50, stomach flu) which then hooks up into a larger network and uploads it real time to the web - like a real life virus tracker, in essence.

Does anything like that exist?

XunilTlatoani · Post by **XunilTlatoani** » September 28, 2004, 1:28 pm

weather.com has allergies, cold&flu, air quality, etc. maps. Here's an example of their cold and flu map:

http://www.weather.com/maps/activity/co ... large.html

I don't know if that's the level of detail you want though

*edit*
i just realized that map says its from May 2004. I suppose that they do update it during flu season though. at least the allergy pages are up to date.

Arborealus · Post by **Arborealus** » September 28, 2004, 1:32 pm

Nope...

Closest you will find is the CDC and WHO updates and they only track dangerous diseases because tracking "bugs" serves no purpose sufficient to warrant the expense of data collection, cataloging and record maintenance...

masteen · Post by **masteen** » September 28, 2004, 1:34 pm

If they did study this sort of crap, I bet they'd find out that 99% of these cases are simply the old bottle flu.

Arborealus · Post by **Arborealus** » September 28, 2004, 2:12 pm

masteen wrote:If they did study this sort of crap, I bet they'd find out that 99% of these cases are simply the old bottle flu.

Nah I'd wager more of it is placebo effect...You can create an "It's going around" thing simply by telling a few people that you are experiencing x symptom...repeat it for a couple days and voila other people develop the same symptom even though you never had it...

Dups. · Post by **Dups.** » September 28, 2004, 2:24 pm

Where can we get these placeboes?!?!?!

Maybe there are some in this truck!!

Morgrym · Post by **Morgrym** » September 28, 2004, 3:22 pm

You must stop and capture these "bugs" before they can reproduce and cause havoc in your body!

But, no I don't think they track anything like that..just the big shit like the plague and smallpox.