frissy said:True, the bird flu ain´t that dangerous yet. Only 54 people dead. The main thing is that a hellawa lot of birds have died because it´s a dangerous virus. It spreads easily and for now it´s just in birds (mostly...54). When it attacks people in the same rate (it does attack...54) as it attacks birds...then we are fucked. For some reason it hasn´t yet done that....
I can´t remember the death ratio on bird flu.
Ashmo said:Oh, and because someone said it's not an epidemic if there's only 50-odd people dead: Yes it is. It's on its way to being a pandemic already -- or was. Not a human one, mind you, but if there's gazillions of birds infected and dead ones turn up as far away as the UK, then that's a bloody epidemic for me.
From medterms.com:
Pandemic: An epidemic (a sudden outbreak) that becomes very widespread and affects a whole region, a continent, or the world.
By contrast:
An epidemic affects more than the expected number of cases of disease occurring in a community or region during a given period of time. A sudden severe outbreak within a region or a group as, for example, AIDS in Africa or AIDS in intravenous drug users...
The word "pandemic" comes from the Greek "pan-", "all" + "demos", "PEOPLE or population" = "pandemos" = "all the PEOPLE." A pandemic affects all (nearly all) of the PEOPLE. By contrast, "epi-" means "upon." An epidemic is visited upon the PEOPLE.
Ashmo said:You make my head hurt.
"Epidemic" and "pandemic" both have the root "demos" in them.
That means "people" (as in "the people (=populace/population) of Afghanistan", not "those two people (=persons/humans) over ther").
"Epidemic" is commonly used for humans and animals alike. It doesn't make sense to say that "pandemic" can't be used that because of the ending "-demic".
We also use the word "population" for other creatures than humans. If you don't want to see non-speciecist reasons as justification for that usage, at least accept it as a metaphor -- just as "tribe", "state" (as in "nation") and similar words are used for phenomenons in the animal "kingdom" in English and other lanuages.
In other words, you just made yourself look like a total looser and imbecil asshole again.
Sad. It seemed as if you had evolved (that was another metaphor, in case you still don't understand the concept).
Punck_D said:as far as i know imbecile and imbecilic can both be used as adjectives.
thanks for your attention.