Passengers Cheat Flu Scan With Fever Reducers 299
Nguyen Van Chau, head of Ho Chi Minh City's Health Department, has revealed that many sick passengers who flew to Ho Chi Minh City used fever reducers to fool temperature scanners at the airport. The government has confirmed 26 people infected with H1N1 flu, 23 of whom came by air after traveling in the United States or Australia. State media reports that the discovery of these scanner cheaters led to the detection of several infected cases later.
Wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
How can you call a desired outcome of taking asprin (reducing a fever) with cheating?
Seems unlikely (Score:4, Insightful)
Intent? (Score:5, Insightful)
And now... (Score:4, Insightful)
...can someone lend me that cool (but useless) thermal scanner so I can watch that hot girl that lives next door? That would be definitely useful.
Re:Fever doesn't spell influenza (Score:5, Insightful)
Fever can be caused by lots of things. H1N1 isn't the only possible fever-inducing pathogen, and you can even have fever without having an infection. Preventing people with fever from travelling seems kind of an overkill.
What you said and the mentality that would refer to this as "cheating" rather than "we need to implement a better way to screen for this, preferably one that fully informs the airline passengers of our intentions" reminded me of a joke. TSA = Thugs Standing Around.
I bet running for the plane will get you flagged. (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a misuse of technology and is very much security theatre. You're more likely to prevent the spread of flu by praying to the spaghetti monster. The thing is that people are panicked over this as it has been overhyped by the media. They're willing to put up with any inconvenience as long as they can trade it for a warm (but not too warm or you'll get scanned) safe feeling.
wow (Score:5, Insightful)
What were they thinking!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Perfectly normal (Score:4, Insightful)
This comment is just continuing the bullshit that is in the article...
People didn't take fever reducers to fool the scanner. They took an aspirin 'cause they felt like crap.
Pointless (Score:4, Insightful)
So this vaunted "flu-scanner" can be fooled simply by taking Tylenol? Are you serious? Shouldn't it be assumed that anyone who is running a fever will most likely be taking fever-reducing medications?
Tell me again what the point of this scanner is?
Re:Wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
H1N1 is a bit miffed about it.
Also the statements by the government quoted in TFA makes it sound a little like the passengers did it intentionally because they knew they were sick and would be detained for 7 days.
Sounds to me more like justification for making examples out of people who were feeling unwell. Punishing "cheaters" to send a message goes over much better than punishing "people who took asprin because they didn't feel well, not realizing they had swine flu"
Re:Fever doesn't spell influenza (Score:5, Insightful)
While you are correct you missed the biggest point. You can carry H1N1 or any virus for days without showing any symptom including fever.
That makes these scanners completely worthless. The goal of these must be to program people to get used to ridiculous measures for their "security."
Re:wow...just wow (Score:3, Insightful)
Because in our culture, your security is something that is done to you, not something in which you are actively involved. Being actively involved in your own interests would be a microcosm of self-determination, self-government, personal responsibility, and individualism. You know, those things that this country used to be all about. There is currently something of a war against those things right now, and I believe it's because they are perceived as obstacles by those who would like to see fascism in the USA. To be correctly appreciated, this must be seen not as isolated issues, but in terms of a few basic principles that determine many aspects of life.
To put that another way, you know what would really stop terrorists from hijacking an airplane? Hundreds of well-armed passengers. And no, a bullet hole will not decompress an aircraft.
Re:I bet running for the plane will get you flagge (Score:3, Insightful)
simple, they were tracked down as sources (Score:4, Insightful)
If they avoided detection by the offending scanner, then how were they detected to be scanner cheaters?
Well, given that they infected other people, and eventually epidemiologists tracked them down via the people they infected...
To all those defending those who traveled while sick: I'm sorry, but if there is a travel ban because of a well publicized disease that is killing people, and you don't feel well, sit your selfish ass down in bed where it belongs. My parents raised me to stay home if I was sick, because it's beyond rude to make those around you sick. The regular flu kills kids and the elderly all the time. This one is much nastier.
Let me put it this way: if people had laptops that were infected, were booted off the network because of security software, and then defeated that security software to get online (and infected machines around them, destroying some of them)...what would you say then?
Re:Fever doesn't spell influenza (Score:4, Insightful)
Or, you know, to prevent a pandemic flu from becoming established inside your borders, thus saving potenitally thousands of lives and countless hours of productivity.
Seriously. The fact that people can be incubating the virus while not presenting symptoms does not mean that identifying those who ARE symptomatic is useless. Identifying people who potentially have the disease, and quarantining them, is one of the most important and effective ways to prevent the spread of communicable disease.
Especially since a vaccine is on the way, the goal right now for any country is to prevent penetration of H1N1 Mexican flu through their borders until the vaccine is widely available.
You may think it's security theater... but then again, we can all be glad you're not the one making the decisions relating to national health concerns on this.
And, FWIW, regarding carrying a virus asymptomatically... almost all viral diseases have predictable incubation times. This is what makes quarantine effective. For example, if you travel to China right now, and someone on your plane has flu-like symptoms, you get quarantined for seven days (several days longer than the incubation time of H1N Mexican flu). So by the end of quarantine, you're either symptomatic, or cleared as not infected.
I'm rambling a bit here, but... the threat of pandemic is real, and fever scanners are a useful tool in helping prevent the spread of the disease. Sure, they're not 100% effective... but for an exponential expansion of victims, a small decrease in vector individuals can drastically reduce the number of people affected before a vaccine is readily available.
Nothing but face-saving (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wait... (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, are passengers on stimulants causing false positives?
Re:Intent? (Score:3, Insightful)
Never mind the fact that if you have a Cold or Flu the doctor will say stop wasting my time and infecting everyone else in the waiting room and take some over the counter pain killers, for instance Ibuprofen or Paracetemol.
Re:simple, they were tracked down as sources (Score:4, Insightful)
This one is much nastier.
[Citation needed]
On the other hand, it's not nastier at all than other flu cases. Just look up the number of infected vs number of dead. And don't forget, we humans never encountered this strain, and despite that the deaths are most of the time people with previous health issues (like normal flu).
You can sleep quietly today. The Aporkalypse won't happen ... for now.
Re:So doing something to my own body is CHEATING? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why, at least since the War on (some) Drugs. You don't own your body if the government can tell you what you may or may not put into it. Likewise, you don't own your consciousness if the government can tell you that there are authorized and unauthorized ways of altering it. In both cases, you are more like a tenant of your body and of your mind, not an owner. That's one of the major reasons why you don't use manipulative social engineering to solve perceived problems, because it sets some very nasty precedents like this. Precedents which later generations, having few or no counter-examples, grow up to believe are normal and acceptable.
If the War on Drugs actually did anything to reduce the street availability of the substances it seeks to control (do the research; it hasn't), I might feel differently about it, though I doubt it because my opposition to it is rooted in principle. As it has failed to achieve its primary stated goals, I consider it completely without merit and its ill side-effects to be unjustifiable. Anyway, to answer your question, yes we have ceded control over our bodies to the government and we did it a long time ago. We traded it for a little safety that hasn't kept us any safer but has guaranteed a steady flow of money to various criminal organizations by means of the black market. Like anyone else who trades what is priceless for something that has a price, we got screwed. Not only is some buyer's remorse in order, it's long overdue.
Re:Wait... (Score:4, Insightful)
How about a more common scenario. One of your co-workers comes in coughing, sneezing, and lathers their arm in snot before leaning over your desk to see what you're looking at. Do you consider that acceptable behavior, or are you going to go to your boss to force them into taking a sick day and going home?
Re:simple, they were tracked down as sources (Score:5, Insightful)
There are several very fundamental problems with your logic:
I've been there back in summer of 2005---sick in Italy on the last day of a two week trip---and let me tell you that it isn't fun. I started out the first leg (from Italy to Heathrow) not feeling great but not terrible. It felt like a cold. By the time I left Heathrow, I was feeling miserable. By the time I got to California, it was a good thing my parents were in town visiting and could pick me up where the bus dropped me off. I would not have been able to roll my luggage the three blocks from where the bus dropped me off back to my house. Staying behind, however, was clearly not an option. I was sick for almost two weeks after that, and would have ended up spending upwards of $4,000 to postpone my return that far, not to mention the problem of getting to medical care without anyone there to drive me, the problem of getting food, etc.
While it's a nice idea (in theory) to avoid traveling while sick, in practice, it is a rather naive notion that doesn't take into account the practicality of doing so. One cannot "stay home" if one gets sick while already away from home.
Re:Fever doesn't spell influenza (Score:3, Insightful)
The only way to truly stop a pandemic is to stop all travel into your borders unless you have a 100% fullproof system.
It would be a miracle if this sytem caught 1%.
Re:simple, they were tracked down as sources (Score:5, Insightful)
You could stay home when other people are sick. Not sure where in the constitution it says healthy people have right to travel when sick people don't.
No one mentioned the word "rights" here, nor is it even a question. Nor is the U.S. Constitution relevant in even the slightest of ways. I really doubt that the Vietnamese, must less most of the world really care one bit about our constitution, nor should they. Countries have the right to restrict foreign travelers, if you break their entry laws, your breaking laws and are free to accept the consequences. This too is fine. If you don't like their laws, no one is forcing you to go there.
Most Government's, including the U.S. have the right to quarantine people for the good of the public health. This is also fine. If you, exercising your rights to be an inconsiderate asshat, endanger hundreds of people, then your rights to travel can, and should, be temporarily suspended. This makes perfect sense.
Can we please stop with this "the Constitution says I have the right to do whatever the hell I please" meme. It doesn't, and it goes against the legal and philosophical trends that lead to the foundation of the US. Your rights stop the second they infringe on someone else's. You don't have the right to be a dick.
Also can we stop with this "The U.S Constitution is somehow universally relevant to other sovereign nations" bull. No one cares. Hell, we decided the Constitution isn't even valid to large swaths of people in the US, or held against their will on US soil. Why should any country treat us differently?
Re:simple, they were tracked down as sources (Score:3, Insightful)
For that matter, if someone exerts themselves on vacation (water skiing, hiking, etc) they may take aspirin for the aches and pains and assume they feel the way they do because they overdid it. They might realize they're sick only when they don't feel better in the next day or two.
Re:Fever doesn't spell influenza (Score:3, Insightful)
In the long run, yes it would be necessary to completely close the borders to prevent your population from being exposed.
But we're not dealing with the long run. We're just dealing with the period of time until the vaccine is widely available (and, of course, proof of vaccination will be required for entry).
Why? If your tolerance of false-positive is high, detection systems like this could be considerably more effective than 1%.
And even if it was only 10%... do the math. (0.9*x)^n is far less than (1*x)^n over successive generations (x = number of people each infected person infects, n is the number of generations). Total number of infected people is halved prior to just the sixth generation.
At any rate, we're not talking about preventing penetration ad infinitum -- just until the vaccine is widely available.
Re:Wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
How are you going to develop any antibodies if you never are exposed to this stuff?
We are breeding entire generations that can be knocked on their collective ass by the mildest of flu strains simply because they have been raised in a risk averse world.
Are we any safer?
Re:Fever doesn't spell influenza (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not worried about the Asian flu or a pandemic. I'm worried about the entire passenger list becoming infected with a common garden variety flu because ONE asshole decided they needed to fly while they were sick.
Re:Wait... (Score:4, Insightful)
Not everything out there makes you stronger if it doesn't manage to kill you. Influenza is something that fits in that category. Not only that, but due to the way it mutates, any immunity you gain from exposure to this year's strain is mostly useless against next year's strain.
Additionally, I'm not interested in becoming stronger by rolling the dice with a disease that has a chance of killing me even if I'm receiving intense medical assistance. Vaccines are one thing; full fledged infections are a whole different set of things.
That doesn't mean we need to be going out and covering our homes with plastic wrap and duct tape, but it does mean that I have absolutely no respect for people who have the flu and willingly and knowingly go out among others while in an infectious state.
This is ironic, because I'm normally the one troting out the story about how the polio epidemic began when people starting living in sanitary conditions and were thus not being exposed to the disease until after they lost the immunity provided to them by their mothers. But today, the flu is one of those diseases where exposure nothing but make you sick.
Re:Wait... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, the excuse of "well my living conditions are so poor that I must fuck everyone else over to live" is a great one. Sadly, it's not a valid excuse you are still fucking over the rest of us.
So forgive me if I'm not particularly interested in how you portray your own selfishiness as more nobel than mine.
Re:Wait... (Score:3, Insightful)
Its another example of the tragedy of the commons, though. Its far better for society if the sick individual stays home... but its slightly better for the sick individual if they go to work. As long as that incentive is there, we're shooting ourselves in our (collective) foot. But, hey, just another example of the difference between standard self-interest and enlightened (long-term herd-considering) self interest...
Re:Wait... (Score:2, Insightful)
It's far better for society for us to build up a strong immune system. You won't get that by putting everybody in a sterile bubble. It just makes us more dependent on a corrupt "health" care system. And it foments the same hysteria we are in over "terrorism". Random roadside health checks will be in order next. It seems all of you might be okay with that.
Re:Wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
The culmination of my trip was a wedding in Northern Ireland. During the wedding, there was a Caylie (Spelling?) band and the reception hall was soon filled with loads of couples spinning and dancing away merrily. Now, as I was wearing a morning suit at the time, I got bloody hot bloody quickly. Ducking outside (Cold Irish night time) cooled me off quick smart. After a few moments, I went back inside. Rinse and repeat a couple of times. Result? Runny nose and cough in the morning, and a tickle in my throat since then.
While I haven't bothered to take anything for it (I have just had a cough for about a week now, nothing else), the article seems to point that if I took some aspirin for what I thought was a cold, and somehow managed to sneak a case of swine flu into the country on my returning flight, I would be some kind of cheater monster evildoer. People take remedies when they feel bad. Get used to it. I dare say that there isn't a single person that doesn't catch swine flu that doesn't start off thinking that it's a normal cold or a nasty one.
If the only measure for tracking sick people entering a country relies on them NOT taking common medication for COMMON SYMPTOMS then the bloody tracking should be the point of the article, not the few people that did what everyone does when they get sick and then "smuggled" themselves into a country.
*Cranky mode off*
Re:Wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd love to see someone like you pursue that. "I'm suing you because you came into work sick and got me sick." ha!
You know, many carriers aren't even aware that the are.
Say an employee takes a cab from the airport. He tosses his sport coat on the seat because it's a warm day (but a company requirement to wear one to meetings). When he gets to the office, he puts on the coat, dusts it off (like any self respecting business man would), buttons it, and rubs out the new wrinkles. His old secretary gives him a hug on the way in. He does the whole round of shaking hands with the rest of the members of the meeting.
When his part of the presentation comes up, he opens his briefcase and takes out a stack of pre-printed documents to hand around. The meeting comes to an end, and he does another round of handshakes, and calls a cab to get a ride back to the airport.
He gets home, hugs and kisses his wife and kids, and proceeds to toss his briefcase in his office, and hangs his sport jacket in the closet.
Little did he know, the person in the cab was being taken to the hospital because they were really sick. They were coughing and sneezing the whole time, and running a high fever. Every inch of the back of the cab was contaminated. His hands, his jacket, the outside of his briefcase, all of which contacted the contaminated seat and door handle.
Now he's potentially contaminated every person he made contact with, as well as the meeting room, and finally the mens room. Sure, he washed his hands after he did his business, but that didn't stop him from contaminating the door handles and the sink he used.
3 days later, he's sick. 4 days later, his wife, kids, and everyone he met at the meeting come down with the same cold.
Who are you going to sue?
Now, a bit more on your topic, a coworker comes in. He has sniffles. Oh my. Allergies, or a cold? He isn't feeling too bad (yet). So some litigious bastard in the next cube catches his cold too. Turns out it wasn't allergies, nor the common cold, but swine flu. You're going to rape him and the company for everything they're worth, just because.
Sorry, the potential of infection is a fact of life. I've traveled a lot, and it's very very likely I've come in contact with things that have made me sick. I joke about "airplane sick", because it's almost guaranteed a few days after I fly, I'll be sick from something. The more I've flown, the less frequently I've gotten sick, probably because I've built up an immunity to a whole variety of illnesses. While I was flying a lot, and had the luxury, I worked from home until I was better. Sometimes I'd come into work the next day, and 3 to 4 days later, other people in the office started getting sick. That's me showered, wearing fresh clean clothes (no contamination on my person), but I may be bringing my laptop in with me, and it's bag. I have yet to see someone wash their laptop and bag. I never knowingly did it. It may have been a coincidence. Who knows. Maybe I touched a bathroom door in the airport that the previously mentioned business man did, and it carried through on my laptop bag. Maybe we just took the same cab, or used the same self-service check-in kiosk.
Re:Wait... (Score:3, Insightful)
waitwait wait....
are we talking about a minor cough or about a diesease KILLING ten thousands of people every year? (yep. It's called 'common flu')
either you're mixing up two things or you should let you're family know that you're risking your and others lives.
otoh, you just might want to get a decent health care system.
Re:Wait... (Score:4, Insightful)
sounds like 3rd world sweat shop to me.
Re:Wait... (Score:2, Insightful)
From what I understand, in some countries you can take indefinite "sick" leave, without doctor's note nor explanation. After your regular leave is up, you then earn 50%. After a period, the gov't pays it. When you're "better", you can just show back up to work, and they're obliged to give you either your original position back, or a comparable one. I knew someone like that. He suffered from depression, didn't leave the house for 2 years, and was still getting paid. He went back to work for a few months, and then the "depression" started up again. I think it was more that he was abusing the system, but there are plenty of people who do that. I prefer to work for pay. I don't feel society owes me anything, unless I do something for them in return.
In the Netherlands it works a *bit* like that, except that there is a separate institution with independant doctors, and after a certain amount of time or a certain amount of sickdays over a year you have to check in with one of those. Said doctor is is still bound by doctor-patient confidentiality, so they're not allowed to tell your employer what is wrong with you, but they will try to bust you if you're gaming the system.
They'll also try to advice the company on what measures might be taken to mediate the issue and if the problem is/might be work-related(yay for bacterial colonies growing in the airco of a callcenter).
I don't feel society owes me anything, unless I do something for them in return.
Ahhhh. Let me guess. You're a single guy?
You are doing something for society. It's called paying taxes. Think of it as an insurance policy for a civilization.
Re:Wait... (Score:3, Insightful)
Playing with dirt is a part of being a kid. Loosen up. Seriously, it's not all that different than tending a garden. The fact that you consider it such a dangerous thing shows you have lost your sense of perspective. Everything you do has a certain risk associated with it. I'm inside a building right now. There is a possibility there will be a power surge which will cause a fire. Does that mean I shouldn't be in the damn build? Hell, I could get hit with a meteor driving home tonight. Does that mean I should never leave my house?
I am not going out and having my kids mud wrestle with iv using crack addicts armed with used needles and feces laced bandages. They're playing with their horses or making mountains. Digging roads and playing cars.
I don't live in a damn rain forest. It's upstate NY where the ground freezes every winter and dries out every summer.