Burning Lemons

Note: This post will probably be out of date by the time I post it. I had to revise it twice in the 5 minutes I spent writing it.

• Death toll so far – 86 (All in Mexico)
• 1,300 Mexicans suspected of having illness given “all-clear”. Unclear if this means they have recovered or if they never had the disease at all.
• Most public facilities in Mexico city closed until May 6 - includes churches, schools and other major gathering points
• US cases confirmed in Texas, Ohio, New York and California
• Texas to close 14 schools in the Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City district
  
• 6 cases confirmed in three separate parts of Canada
• 6 cases suspected in Spain
• Possible that cases have developed in Airdrie, Scotland and Northampton
• Further suspected cases in New Zealand, France and Israel
• Governement spokesman says it is: “Highly likely” that New Zealand cases are swine flu but “there is no guarantee”
• Health emergency declared in US (government playing down seriousness of declaration. Claims that the decision is for mainly bureaucratic reasons).
• WHO Emergency meeting on Tuesday to co-ordinate international response
• 100 students ill with “flu-like” symptoms at New York prep school – 5 students at same school confirmed to have disease. However symptoms described as “mild”
• Several countries have begun medical screening of passengers arriving from Mexico

Quick end of day roundup

So far despite the wide spread of suspected cases across 3 continents there have only been confirmed cases in North America. The only deaths so far have been in Mexico and all patients in other countries are displaying “mild” symptoms and many are said to be progressing well.

The UK governement has not issued any advice against travelling to Mexico and the country’s borders and airports remain open as normal although many countries are now carrying out very basic checks on travllers arriving from Mexico these mainly consists of a few simple questions.

The raising of the threat level to emergency by the US governement is so far only for administrative reason and does not represent any major change in the governements view of events.

Above all in all locations but certain areas of Mexico the public are being urged to go about their lives as normal unless they develop flu-like symptoms in which case they are urged to stay at home. People displaying such symptoms should not go to a hospital unless they are displaying symptoms that would cause them to seek treatment under normal circumstances to avoid over-burdening hospitals. General precautions such as hand-washing are advised. The US governement have also pointed out that so far it does not appear that one can catch the disease by eating infected pork

That’s all for tonight - I will have another post tomorrow in the mean time stay with the excellent @BreakingNews account on Twitter @klustout presenter of CNN International’s CNN Today morning programme from Hong Kong will also be posting updates.

All the information in the post above is (to the best of my knowledge) correct and current as of 21:55 GMT on April 26 2009.

Update 1: Added information on new outbreak in Canada
Update 2: Added information about health screening
Update 3: Added New Zealand and Israel to list of countries with suspected cases and revised total number of cases in Canada down to 6 (my mistake)
Update 4: Added information about case statistics in Mexico
Update 5: Added information about closure of facilities in Mexico city and schools in Texas
Update 6: Removed word “possible” from information about patients in Scotland following Nicola Sturgeon interview and added details of Northampton case
Update 7: Added additional information about case in France
Update 8: Added wrapup

Data collected from @BreakingNews, @felix85, @mpoppel, @rosemaryCNN, France 24, BBC World Service, BBC News Channel and Reuters

Since the election of The SNP Government in May 2007 the issue of Scotland succeding from The United Kingdom has again become an issue. Some people are beginning to argue that even though we are yet to get anywhere close to a referendum on actual independence the SNP is gradually moving the country in that direction by diversifying Scotland from the rest of The UK.

For example just the other day it was announced that all trains in Scotland will be repainted into a livery defined by Transport Scotland (the government regulator of Transport) and not one decided on by the operating company (in this case FirstScotRail). While this may seem insignificant it is another example of The SNP choosing to do things differently to The rest of The UK. Other examples exist across Health, Education and almost every area touched by the government.

So is this independence by stealth. I find it hard to think so, while the SNP are clearly pro-independence I believe this is only a case of deciding what is best for Scotland as opossed to remaiing in-line with the rest of The UK.