Anime Boston

Anime Boston 2009 and its organizers are aware of laboratory confirmed cases of swine flu in Massachusetts and the surrounding area. Anime Boston staff highly suggests all attendees to follow these basic hygienic rules while attending the convention:

* Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Throw the tissue in the trash after you use it. If you do not have a tissue, cough or sneeze into your sleeve and not your hands.
* Wash your hands often with soap and water, especially after you cough or sneeze. Alcohol-based hands cleaners are also effective.
* Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth. Germs spread that way.
* Stay home if you get sick.

Hand washing, fluid and trash stations are available throughout the Hynes Convention Center and the Sheraton Boston Hotel. We suggest that all attendees make use of these facilities to remain healthy and hygienic during this year’s convention.

As of this time, Anime Boston 2009 is still scheduled May 22-24th, 2009 and all guests have been confirmed to attend.

For more information about the H1N1 strain of flu, please visit http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/ or call 1-800-CDC-INFO.

Thank you!

Con attendees should not worry about swine flu- be cautious, but don't panic. You're more likely to get regular flu or "con plague" than swine flu.

I'm glad to see that Anime Boston has more sense than the dolts at certain schools and events throughout Massachusetts. It's refreshing knowing that the paranoia of an everyday flu is not going to rob us of a wonderful con.

Y'know, I think this swine flu panic might be a good thing for the con -- It'll get people to shower regularly.

[quote=jessica]Y'know, I think this swine flu panic might be a good thing for the con -- It'll get people to shower regularly.[/quote]
Very true..... But anyways, more people die fromnormal flu a year than this swine flu, the only person it killed was a baby. I have no idea why everyone is so worried about it.

[quote=chibikakashi0101][quote=jessica]Y'know, I think this swine flu panic might be a good thing for the con -- It'll get people to shower regularly.[/quote]
Very true..... But anyways, more people die fromnormal flu a year than this swine flu, the only person it killed was a baby. I have no idea why everyone is so worried about it.[/quote]

Well, people like babies.

[quote=drorain]I'm glad to see that Anime Boston has more sense than the dolts at certain schools and events throughout Massachusetts. It's refreshing knowing that the paranoia of an everyday flu is not going to rob us of a wonderful con.[/quote]

Actually, the swine flu is spreading faster than the regular flu. So it's not entirely unreasonable for schools to close. However, I do think it's more reasonable for schools in southern border states to close than in the less hard-hit northern states.

Either way, I'm glad to hear that Anime Boston is still going on as planned, with simple precautions taken.

[quote=Kogarashi][quote=drorain]I'm glad to see that Anime Boston has more sense than the dolts at certain schools and events throughout Massachusetts. It's refreshing knowing that the paranoia of an everyday flu is not going to rob us of a wonderful con.[/quote]

Actually, the swine flu is spreading faster than the regular flu. So it's not entirely unreasonable for schools to close. However, I do think it's more reasonable for schools in southern border states to close than in the less hard-hit northern states.

Either way, I'm glad to hear that Anime Boston is still going on as planned, with simple precautions taken. [/quote]
H1N1 is more virulent than the normal strains of flu, but it is no more deadly than are the known strains. Indeed, the Mexican authorities have already said that fewer people than originally thought have died as a result of swine flu ( Link ). They originally thought around 120 and its now down to 29. Either way, though, if people are going to get sick at AB, they're going to get sick. You put over 15,000 people into one building and you're going to end up with a heck of a lot of germs and viruses floating around.

Unless the admins will be floating around and taking random swabs of hands to check for bacteria and viruses, there's no way they could prevent it in the first place, even with the hand sanitiser stations all around Hynes.

[quote=tycoonmike]
H1N1 is more virulent than the normal strains of flu, but it is no more deadly than are the known strains. Indeed, the Mexican authorities have already said that fewer people than originally thought have died as a result of swine flu ( Link ). They originally thought around 120 and its now down to 29. Either way, though, if people are going to get sick at AB, they're going to get sick. You put over 15,000 people into one building and you're going to end up with a heck of a lot of germs and viruses floating around.

Unless the admins will be floating around and taking random swabs of hands to check for bacteria and viruses, there's no way they could prevent it in the first place, even with the hand sanitiser stations all around Hynes.

[/quote]

It's so refreshing to see someone being level headed about this (and back it up!). Thanks for the link, man.

[quote=jessica][quote=tycoonmike]
H1N1 is more virulent than the normal strains of flu, but it is no more deadly than are the known strains. Indeed, the Mexican authorities have already said that fewer people than originally thought have died as a result of swine flu ( Link ). They originally thought around 120 and its now down to 29. Either way, though, if people are going to get sick at AB, they're going to get sick. You put over 15,000 people into one building and you're going to end up with a heck of a lot of germs and viruses floating around.

Unless the admins will be floating around and taking random swabs of hands to check for bacteria and viruses, there's no way they could prevent it in the first place, even with the hand sanitiser stations all around Hynes.

[/quote]

It's so refreshing to see someone being level headed about this (and back it up!). Thanks for the link, man. [/quote]
It helps when you have a relative who works at a hospital, but point and thanks taken.

Thank you for the link and the helpful info. I'm not saying people should panic. Quite the contrary. People need to actually stop and think with a level head instead of going into insta-panic mode.

I agree that there's no way for con staff to prevent this, even if they wanted, and it certanly sounded to me like it would likely be no worse than the usual Con Plague.

I think the only reason Swine Flu is getting so much media attention is that it popped op kinda suddenly and there's no vaccine(to my knowledge anyway, correct me if I'm wrong). A friend of mine got it and she got over it, she's fine.

And Jessica's right, people showering more now could be a blessing.

The front page announcement is missing the word "As" in the title.
"Anime Boston 2009 will go on as scheduled!"

Im bringing hand sanitizer with me, the tiny bottles, its one way to help keep germs at bay ^^;. My friend had the swine flue a week ago and is fine. I didnt catch it from him and i was around him a for a few minutes. Didn't seem as bad as a lot of people made it out 2 be.

Eh, antibacterial hand wash really doesn't do that much. Just washing your hands in general is much better.
I'd also rather not see people encouraging resistant mutations to multiply~ So if at all possible, wash your hands normally rather than using your hand sanitizer.

This post is so ironic considering I'm sitting at home with the good old fashioned regular flu as I type. Talk about bad timing. I've been laying around growing weeds on my sofa since Monday. I HATE not being able to do things. But I guess on the plus side, I'll be good to go by con time. -__- I just hope this little set back doesn't cost me my cosplay.

[quote=NoTouchie]I think the only reason Swine Flu is getting so much media attention is that it popped op kinda suddenly and there's no vaccine(to my knowledge anyway, correct me if I'm wrong). A friend of mine got it and she got over it, she's fine.

And Jessica's right, people showering more now could be a blessing.[/quote]
The reason why it got media attention was because it basically jumped species and began infecting humans. Normal antibiotics work fine against it, it just basically appeared out of nowhere.

Antibiotics only work against microbial infections, as kind of pointed out above. Viruses have to be treated differently. Antibiotics may help in certain situations to work against opportunistic microbial infections that might pop up during a viral infection, but they don't do anything for the virus.

[quote=pulsedemon]Antibiotics only work against microbial infections, as kind of pointed out above. Viruses have to be treated differently. Antibiotics may help in certain situations to work against opportunistic microbial infections that might pop up during a viral infection, but they don't do anything for the virus.[/quote]
OK, then vaccines. Replace the word "antibiotics" to "vaccines."

There is no vaccine for it, just like for most straings of the regular flu. The thing that is working against it are medicine like Tamiflu which helps reduce the symptoms and gives relief while your body fights the flu.

You have a better chance of getting the Con Flu than Swine Flu.

Oi! Then medicines. God-in-heaven give me a break! And either way, the main issue is still at hand: if we all are going to get sick, no amount of Tamiflu or hand sanitizer will prevent it.

Tamiflu is meant to reduce severity of symptoms, not prevent catching the virus.

I would hope you get the point...

No medicine, no matter what it does, or preventive measure will ever fully prevent an outbreak, especially when you combine high attendance numbers and cramped spaces (I don't care how big the hotel or Hynes is, 15000 people descending onto Boston will result in things becoming at least slightly cramped)

If I had known you people were this uptight about semantics, I probably never would have posted to begin with

I think just this forum alone serves as a good example of the media's failure to educated the public about the flu. I'm not calling any of you stupid, just that the media would rather "ZOMG SWINE!" than sit down and talk to everyone rationally.

Then again, you shouldn't really rely on the media.

The spread of misinformation is harmful. If you don't know what you're talking about, don't talk about it.

Some newscasts (most of what i've encountered) do a great job of explaining things correctly. Misinformed people that only partly pay attention to what they read and then spread that incorrect information are far more of a problem.

I think the most important thing to get out of this topic is everyone stay clean! Please shower! And don't sneeze on anyone! That would just be rude as well as unhealthy...

All due respect, but the media has been blowing this whole thing way out of proportion. It has been no more deadly than the normal seasonal flu. And, with all due respect to anyone on the forums that may be from Mexico, the Mexican health services are far inferior to our own or those in Europe. I know what I'm talking about, I just couldn't find the right words.

And, as I said, the original point still stands. How will medicine or hand sanitizer stations prevent the unpreventable, that which being some portion of the AB community getting sick whether it be with H1N1 or some other virus or bacteria?

I'm pretty paranoid about everything...but I'll not let this prevent me from coming to the convention. I'm just hoping it's still a relatively rare case to catch, getting sick at a Con isn't fun at all

[quote=NoTouchie]I think the only reason Swine Flu is getting so much media attention is that it popped op kinda suddenly and there's no vaccine(to my knowledge anyway, correct me if I'm wrong). A friend of mine got it and she got over it, she's fine.

And Jessica's right, people showering more now could be a blessing.[/quote]
Actualy there is a vaccine, But more people are dying from it than the actual virus.....

and while this discussion is great, and some of the info is even better...

I think its time to lock this up. Anime Boston's point has been made, no further discussion is really necessary.

Thank you all! But we have less than 2 weeks and allot of details still to finalize and we don't need this to become an un-moderated flame war, or other forum mess. so I'm just going to Lock it now.