I need to get me a gas mask...

Number 9 is so incredibly North American. What's next? Drive-thru eye exams? Dental appointments? Liver transplants? S'il vous plait!

crazy. people should have bigger worries than this. RIP to all who have passed away b/c of this virus though..

Fear not! My whole family has had it without extreme problems. This is ridiculous!

I am impressed by the automatic holy water dispenser. That one makes a lot of sense.

I too would like a gas mask. That thing rocks.

Some of this seems over like sensationalized photos to me, but I do hope this is not a pandemic in the making. One is bound to come sooner than later, as we can be immune to everything, everywhere.

#28 is a gem - two soldiers with their noses poking out! H1N1 has killed just slightly more people than Leprosy has in the same amount of time.

There was an automatic holy water dispenser in ancient Rome. I don't see what the big deal is.

(You actually had to pay for holy water by the way. It was not a "Push Button, Receive Bacon" kind of thing)

Ridiculous. Over the top hyped disease.
Masks on the beach? Masks for dogs?
There are worse everyday risks than H1N1.

I'm disgusted by the panic created to sell this untested vaccine.

With a little bit of research (independent of the popular media) it's easy to see that there are ulterior motives behind the H1N1 scare.

I am insanely amused by the idea of catching Swine Flu from Holy Water.

@ #2 about Number 9. While I agree with you it's from N. America, wouldn't you think it better to forgo the waiting room to save another life, or would you rather hundreds packs into a poorly ventilated room just to wait for a shot? Free the Pigs!

My wife, myself, and both of my kids have had this and made it through. Even our health care provider felt it was hype, especially for those who are generally healthy. Mind you, it was the worst feeling flu I've ever had, but it was not the instant death sentence the news seems to portray it as. If you have a preexisting disease, especially asthma, certainly get yourself immunized. H1N1 is murder on the lungs and I can only imagine how asthma sufferers feel under it.

My wife watches news in Spanish, and their take on the news is so bad as to be borderline illegal. This is the same group of news wonderkids who predicted on the 6pm news at the time that the Hale-Bopp comet would destroy the world and actually did not give a weather report for the following day.

H1N1 must be really bad if Baby Jesus needs a mask!

uhh, is it me or does #16 look more like boiled chicks than boiled eggs????

If you could get Leprosy from people on the subway- trust me - there would be a bit of hubbub.
And hey- not even talking about the slim chance of fatality.
I have sick elderly parents so ANY flu would be a problem. And who can afford to be out of work for a week with the flu.
So people are wearing masks. They are still going out and they aren't screaming, tearing their hair out in the streets. This is a highly preventable illness. What's wrong with doing what you can to avoid it?

Think about 4 million deaths globally from cigarettes each year, or what about the complications of drug resistant Tuberculosis. This H1N1 is a bit over done.

The masks don't work to KEEP you from getting the flu, just from spreading it. And the stats on that are iffy at best. So, yeah, don't waste your money on masks or garlic for crying out loud. Wash you hands and stay home.

Overhyped disease. This is just a flu. Go to the doctor, take your medicine and get over it.

i hope H1N1 scare is over soon

I love that Afghanistan's only known pig was quarantined though.....

I have actually been wrapping myself in bubble wrap everyday to prevent from getting H1N1. Unfortunately I have spent a small fortune in bubble wrap and some people have said I look ridiculous. But I haven't gotten sick yet!

This illness has been ridiculously sensationalized.

Going by deaths this year, you're 300 times more likely to die from diarrhea than swine flu.

Lol, H1N1 seems to be everywhere except in France =P)

Don't blink, or you will miss the pandemic.

anyone know what the gas is in pic ten in the classroom?

I got this H1N1 last July, and it was like a normal flu, but with more fever and cough. Nothing to worry about, I was ok after 4 or 5 days

Is anybody else besides me surprised that virtually none of the people administering the shots are wearing GLOVES?! What ever happened to universal precautions???

This is the Boston Globe so I'll chime in with "What about all those cute little baby chicks they killed to get the vaccine?" ;-)

Nice to see some people getting vaccinated... you sure don't see that in our neck of the woods in central Massachusetts.

The whole h1n1 ordeal has been poorly managed. There weren't enough vaccines available at a critical time, the doctors don't prescribe tamiflu so more people end up in the hospital swamping the emergency rooms across the country. No, these people are not "faking" their symptoms: they've been pretty sick with a very high fever for a few days and they are not getting better.
It's not the flu that kills! It's the complications to the flu, such as pneumonia, that kills. A person's immune system is ravaged by the intense battle against the flu, leaving a person vulnerable to other germs or nosocomial infections.

What happened to the awareness of aids, std's and other much wider spread healthproblems? it seems, at least in my country the Netherlands that no attention is given to more serious problems.

when any Dutch politician speaks about,and advices to take the vaccine, I can't help to notice the hidden agenda of companies selling this vaccine.

#11 is a very good foto. The girl on the left feels the other girl's paín.

wow nice piccs you got over there , but i ,too,think its a little to much.
here at the Netherlands everyone is scared too but strange enough ( i work at a older-home) i see a lot of people but i didn't see anyone sick with the H1N1-virus,or is it because its just like the 'normal' flu? ;)

overkill... in california of the 13,000 reported cases of swine flu only 2% turned out to be true cases of swine flu.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/10/21/cbsnews_investigates/main5404829.shtml

The vaccine is made from chicken eggs? Sounds good enough to me. Sign me up!

That's just ridiculous! It just seems that like this everybody forgot about economy crisis, we have other distractions, it's fun!
I want too a gas mask! just in case of I will get some stupidity!!!

Anonymous@14: "uhh, is it me or does #16 look more like boiled chicks than boiled eggs????"

It's both, actually. Flu vaccine is manufactured using *fertilized* chicken eggs. (It has to be whole cells; an unfertilized egg is only half a cell and won't work for replicating the virus.) So there are indeed chicken embryos inside those boiled eggs. Kinda like a balut (a boiled fertilized egg, considered a delicacy in some parts of the world).

The sky is falling - the sky is falling.

NOT

#35 really glad someone else asked that. Yep looked like balut.

that poor pig looks dead already...

Number 3 is my wallpaper now. Thanks

That looks serious!

The vaccine isn't MADE from chicken eggs, that's where they incubate it

Mandatory, mandatory! Prepare for the mandatory. What´s wrong with all the people. Do we love fear?

Can't believe the Drive thru... Only in the Americas...

Take your vitamins!

Ooh, can't we just eat the fertilized eggs then, instead of getting stung by a big needle? I hate needles.

@21: I have not been wrapping myself in anything, and still did not get it :). This swine flu is overrated. It is ridiculous what people do just because they believe what others tell them to.

Wonderful pictures, however. I love # 9 - pathetic, 11, 14, and 29- unbelievably hilarious!

Those aren't chicken eggs, not like you'd buy at the store. They're chicken embryos. Chicken embryos are very, very commonly used to test and develop vaccines, not just H1N1 vaccines or flu vaccines in general.

I had H1N1 a couple of weeks ago. It was almost exactly like regular flu and lasted for about 5-6 days. I stayed home while I was sick, and so none of my coworkers got sick. The hype is kind of ... hype-ish. I didn't particularly ENJOY having the flu or anything, but mono was worse.

It's not over-hyped, not over publicized, and officials are not making too big a deal out of this. If it were to become what it might, and kill tens – or hundreds – of millions of people, the complainers here would be the first to prattle on about not enough having been done to prevent disaster.

The REAL tragedy most likely is though some precautions are ridiculous (gas masks and protecting dogs), there's a good chance reasonable measures will prevent a pandemic. Then you can bet the very same critics will start to bellyache about wasted resources.

Stalin once said, "The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic." You can't stat thinking of people as statistics, or too many will slip through the holes in the safety net.

The word pandemic is getting a bad reputation. There are three specific criterias that explain the term:
1) a disease NEW to the population
2) an infection causing SERIOUS (not deadly) illness to humans
3) the ability to SPREAD EASILY from person to person

PEOPLE may be confusing this word and its meaning with EPIDEMIC.

It's too bad the flu vaccine doesn't even work.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200911/brownlee-h1n1

“The estimate of 50 percent mortality reduction is based on “cohort studies,” which compare death rates in large groups, or cohorts, of people who choose to be vaccinated, against death rates in groups who don’t. But people who choose to be vaccinated may differ in many important respects from people who go unvaccinated—and those differences can influence the chance of death during flu season. Education, lifestyle, income, and many other “confounding” factors can come into play, and as a result, cohort studies are notoriously prone to bias.”

“In 2004, for example, vaccine production fell behind, causing a 40 percent drop in immunization rates. Yet mortality did not rise. In addition, vaccine “mismatches” occurred in 1968 and 1997: in both years, the vaccine that had been produced in the summer protected against one set of viruses, but come winter, a different set was circulating. In effect, nobody was vaccinated. Yet death rates from all causes, including flu and the various illnesses it can exacerbate, did not budge.”

Read the article for yourselves. I'm not going to categorically dismiss the value of all vaccines, but maybe it is time to start investigating the science behind the claims. You be the judge of whether or not the CDC and WHO are ever worth trusting again.

It's easy to say that H1N1 is over sensationalized and that people who were infected got through it fine. I'm sure those sentiments will change when someone you know and cares for gets it and dies.
Precaution is a better deterrent but get vaccinated anyway just in case.
No one can predict how many people will get infected or get sick and die, but if the virus mutates to deadlier strain like the 1918 Spanish flu, no one will pan how over hyped it is then.
There are a lot of people who died from this strain already and I'm sure the families of those who died wished there was a vaccine last year.
So I hope people who read this blogs don't get dissuaded from getting the vaccine especially if they are in the high risk group.

#37 is great

Two words for the alarmists:
BIRD.
FLU.

Come on people, its like wearing your seat belt, you never know when somethings going to hit you. I don't like wearing my seat belt but guess what, I was involve in a very bad accident and the seat belt help save my life.

That pretty much what a vaccine is for. Just in case! Better be safe than sorry. Get a shot if you want, don't get a shot if you don't want. No one is forcing you to have one. Of course if it mutates and starts killing people in the millions, I'm sure the governments will force you to have a shot.

I'm surprised at the number of comments saying it's no big deal.

That's the point. It's a highly unstable virus, unlike the seasonal flu, and has a great potential to mutant and become highly fatal, especially if it mixes with the also unstable H5N1. The point of all of the vaccinations is to try to limit the spread so that it doesn't have a chance to turn into a highly fatal virus and cause another epidemic like in 1918 which killed 3% of the worlds population. The 1918 epidemic started off with a small rate of infection, but blew up and caused 50 million deaths... and that in a time without quick, long distance transportation like planes.

Yes, it's based on possibilities, but think of it like asteroid impacts. Wouldn't you rather have a preventative program in place than get hit unexpected?

#13 was just a joke in order to show disrespect to our government who tries to use the situation in their favour before winter presidential elections. they even have bought uncertified medicine from Malasia. Now u see the difference between the level of their concern about people and own interests.

Just a pure disgrace from them
If only it was possible for all of them to lose this time((

Yeah go Serbs we all know garlic is cure-all. Besides you can only smell it if you're not using it so go ahed, knock yourself out :-)

if,like those who have come out of the pandemic said,the flu is not so dangerous,then i don't understand why people even bother to take the vaccine.i feel natural medicines are better and safer,like in #8,though it is a little funny.

i learned from many people that vaccine is a greater threat than flu itself

H1N1 is the new SARS

Cute nurse in #5. Just sayin.

what is with this media circus?

WHO states - and has done for the last year - that 5,000 kids under the age of 2 definitely die from lack of clean water each week.

#22 city name should read "Daejeon", not "Deajeon"

Great collection. People are getting creative even during a pandemic, it says somewhere that humor can safe people from the worst. How to post the link on other sites, I mean from the copy write perspective.
Thanks

I'm sorry to say there are so many ignorant people! They basically say, "don't get a vaccine, you'll be fine!". I guess these same people have multiple medical degree's to give such excellent advice.
Lunacy if you ask me!
The idea of a vaccine is to prevent massive transmission of the virus and to keep it from mutating to another strain.

Then there are those who sites the "Bird Flu" as another example of over hype disease. For the most part, the infected people were quarantined and treated before it had a chance to circulate. That's what all of this is for! Precaution and Prevention!
Apparently people forget about the AID's virus which killed at least 25 million people since 1981 and still killing people today and they still haven't found a decent vaccine for that. And NO, its not just a gay diseases, women and children are casualties too. Although the transmission medium is different, had there been a vaccine before 1981, the number of death would have been less.

If you're perfectly healthy and don't want to get the vaccine, then don't!
But a large number of the population (doesn't matter where you are) are susceptible to catching the virus and it's prudent to get the vaccine especially those with breathing problems.
I wonder if those people who advocates not taking the vaccines are doctors or medical researchers because the write as if they are expert in virology.
Probably not.

# 8, Well if you eat garlic raw your really won't get the virus 'cause no one is coming close to you!
I guess this is one way of getting the people of the world together.
Nice pictures! So, when are people going to turn into zombies?
Lighten up people! Get vaccinated, Don't get vaccinated it's really your choice.
besides I heard the world will end on December 21, 2012! Nostradamus and the Mayan said so!
If you live through the epidemic/pandemic and somehow live through the end of the word, send me an e-mail, we'll have a block party!

Many people would think twice if they worked in the hospitals that see H1N1! Many previously healthy people are on ventilators with maximum support! Everyone thinks they know it all...everyone says "I never thought it would happen to me or my family" Well, to that I say "you were warned".

Alle Bilder sind gut beobachtete Situationen.

LOL @ Number 11

Wow, what is it about attempting to contain and prevent a disease that brings out all the hysterical, shrieking denialist nutjobs? There, there, you got your attention, sweeties. It's okay; the big bad photo essay can't hurt you. Time to climb back in your cribs and take a nice nap...

The pig from Kabul seems to laugh with amusement ;-)

"Quote" I'm disgusted by the panic created to sell this untested vaccine.

With a little bit of research (independent of the popular media) it's easy to see that there are ulterior motives behind the H1N1 scare. "Quote"

Oh, you mean THAT kind of research? Haha! Oh, sweet irony..

# 17, Wrong!!! bad, very bad idea!

That guy with a gas mask in #13 is riding a tram, not a bus.
Otherwise, impressive as always, keep the good work BG!

the bigger concern of health authorities is the fact that there could be a more massive outbreak as was the case with sars.pray to God that doesnot happen.

Re: #29
What is a Chinese dog doing wearing an FBI jacket, nevermind the mask?

Lord Have Mercy !!! What a world !!!

I work for a pharmaceutical company. I work in CIS. I think the media has unncessarily exaggerated it. I am taking simple precautions, but working in polyclinics and hospitals everyday. We should pacify panic and fear.

What a great collection.
Totally on topic, lots of different perspectives.

It's unfortunate that this world is filled with lots of ignorant people ... and they are the ones who may die, and not from H1N1, but from the next FLU virus that will come around later in the season. H1N1 vaccine contains SQUALENE, an adjuvant (a substance that may cause your immune system go into a "hyper-drive" and to viciously attack not only the viruses, but its own cells). Oh and by the way, the use of SUQALENE has not been approved in the US. FDA has never put it on the list of "safe" medicine. Again, for those that may not have gotten what I was saying: FDA HAS NOT APPROVED THE USE OF SQUALENE IN THE US. Nevertheless, it is present in the H1N1 vaccine. Do you own research from now on. The truth is at your fingertips. Google it. Oh and by the way, after you are done with squalene, put the following search words: "Joseph Moshe". Happy reading ....

I think Garlic is a better choice than a shot of containing mercury. Plus its delicious! It's both antibacterial and antiviral.

Entirely agree, garlic is the solution and better choice than a shot of containing mercury. Great answer! Way to go!