Influenza Quotes

Several possibilities came to mind.
1. She was living in a suburb of the city of Utashinai on Hokkaido.
2. She had married and changed her name to 'Ito.'
3. She kept her number unlisted to protect her privacy.
4. She had died in the spring two years earlier from a virulent influenza.
There must have been any number of possibilities beside these. ~ Haruki Murakami

The influenza epidemic eventually claimed more than six million lives, but in the United States, at least, it had run its course by late in the year. ~ Dean Jensen

For the first time in history we can track the evolution of a pandemic in real time. Influenza viruses are notorious for their rapid mutation and unpredictable behaviour. ~ Margaret Chan

You might be asking too much if you're looking for one vaccine for every conceivable influenza. If you have one or two that cover the vast majority of isolates, I wouldn't be ashamed to call that a 'universal vaccine.' ~ Anthony Fauci

The education bestowed on Flora Poste by her parents had been expensive, athletic and prolonged; and when they died within a few weeks of one another during the annual epidemic of the influenza or Spanish Plague which occurred in her twentieth year, she was discovered to possess every art and grace save that of earning her own living. ~ Stella Gibbons

Influenza pandemics must be taken seriously, precisely because of their capacity to spread rapidly to every country in the world. ~ Margaret Chan

We know there are certain types of viruses that are nasty - influenza, for instance, is an area that is not a blindside. But a lot of viruses have come out of nowhere, like H.I.V., or to a certain extent SARS. Because we know we have the potential to be blindsided, we really have to investigate the unknowns. ~ Nathan Wolfe

His hand was a claw, sharp enough to open her. She would be like all the others - Ruta Badowski, in her broken dancing shoes. Tommy Duffy, still with the dirt of his last baseball game under his nails. Gabriel Johnson, taken on the best day of his life. Or even Mary White, holding out for a future that never arrived. She'd be like all those beautiful, shining boys marching off to war, rifles at their hips and promises on their lips to their best girls that they'd be home in time for Christmas, the excitement of the game showing in their bright faces. They'd come home men, heroes with adventures to tell about, how they'd walloped the enemy and put the world right side up again, funneled it into neat lines of yes and no. Black and white. Right and wrong. Here and there. Us and them. Instead, they had died tangled in barbed wire in Flanders, hollowed by influenza along the Western Front, blown apart in no-man's-land, writhing in trenches with those smiles still in place, courtesy of the phosgene, chlorine, or mustard gas. Some had come home shell-shocked and blinking, hands shaking, mumbling to themselves, following orders in some private war still taking place in their minds. Or, like James, they'd simply vanished, relegated to history books no one bothered to read, medals put in cupboards kept closed. Just a bunch of chess pieces moved about by unseen hands in a universe bored with itself. ~ Libba Bray

Shut your eyes," said Miss Tanner.
"Oh no," said Miranda, "for then I see worse things ... ~ Katherine Anne Porter

Teenage crush is like flu. If you find a remedy for it, it lasts for a couple of days. If you don't, it still lasts for a couple of days. ~ Raheel Farooq

Considering how common illness is, how tremendous the spiritual change it brings, how astonishing, when the lights of health go down, the undiscovered countries that are then disclosed, what wastes and deserts of the soul a slight attack of influenza brings to view, what precipices and lawns sprinkled with bright flowers a little rise of temperature reveals, what ancient and obdurate oaks are uprooted in us by the act of sickness ... it is strange indeed that illness has not taken its place with love and battle and jealousy among the prime themes of literature.
from her essay, On Being Ill ~ Virginia Woolf

Eat good dinners and drink good wine; read good novels if you have the leisure and see good plays; fall in love, if there is no reason why you should not fall in love; but do not pore over influenza statistics. ~ Jerome K. Jerome

There are environmental threats to health; there are internal threats to health - genetic conditions, viral threats, diseases like cancer and Parkinson's. And then there are societal and global ones, like poverty and lack of nutrition. And unknown viral threats - everything from a new kind of influenza to hemorrhagic fever. ~ Bill Maris

The emergence and spread of virulent strains of avian influenza has been attributed by experts to the intensely overcrowded, unsanitary, and stressful conditions that often characterize large-scale factory farming in industrialized agriculture. ~ Michael Greger

All countries should immediately now activate their pandemic preparedness plans. Countries should remain on high alert for unusual outbreaks of influenza-like illness and severe pneumonia. ~ Margaret Chan

Based on assessment of all available information and following several expert consultations, I have decided to raise the current level of influenza pandemic alert from phase 4 to phase 5. ~ Margaret Chan

For many years, the proposed influenza epicenter has been thought to be Southeast Asia. Farming practices there bring pigs, fowl, and people into close contact, allowing swine, avian, and human flu viruses to mix. The cycle is thought to be birds to pigs to humans. ~ Elizabeth T. Murane

Influenza is a serious disease. Kids die of influenza, both in Japan and the United States, and if you give a drug to people who are at risk of dying, there will be people who die who got the drug, ... There is no signal the drug is doing it as opposed to the disease. ~ Robert Nelson

Pandemics do not occur randomly. From malaria and influenza to AIDS and SARS, the lethal microbes have come, in the first instance, from animals, especially wild animals. And we increasingly know which parts of the world pose the greatest risk for future incursions. ~ Nathan Wolfe

But it's not just me, you know. The whole world's sad," I said. "It's like a virus. It's going to end badly. Glaciers melting, ozone depleted. Terrorists blowing up buildings, nuclear rods infecting the aqueducts. Influenza hopping from the pigeons to the humans, killing millions. Billions. People rotting in the street. The sun bursting open, shattering us eight minutes later. If not that, starvation. Cannibalism. Freakish mutated babies with eyeballs in their navels. It's a terrible place to bring a child into," I said. "This world. It is terrible. Just terrible." I ~ Lauren Groff

Who can stop influenza and tuberculosis? The wealth of high society cannot buy off this evil, for their bored children die alongside everyone else. ~ Margie Bayer

Bells Screamed all off key, wrangling together as they collided in midair, horns and whistles mingled shrilly with cries of human distress; sulphur-colored light ex-ploded through the black windowpane and flashed away in darkness. Miranda waking from a dreamless sleep asked without expecting an answer, "What is happening?" for there was a bustle of voices and footsteps in the corridor, and a sharpness in the air; the far clamour went on, a furious exasperated shrieking like a mob in revolt.

The light came on, and Miss Tanner said in a furry voice, "Hear that? They're celebrating . It's the Armistice. The war is over, my dear." Her hands trembled. She rattled a spoon in a cup, stopped to listen, held the cup out to Miranda. From the ward for old bedridden women down the hall floated a ragged chorus of cracked voices singing, "My country, 'tis of thee…"

Sweet land… oh terrible land of this bitter world where the sound of rejoicing was a clamour of pain, where ragged tuneless old women, sitting up waiting for their evening bowl of cocoa, were singing, "Sweet land of Liberty-"

"Oh, say, can you see?" their hopeless voices were asking next, the hammer strokes of metal tongues drowning them out. "The war is over," said Miss Tanner, her underlap held firmly, her eyes blurred. Miranda said, "Please open the window, please, I smell death in here. ~ Katherine Anne Porter

The splendid thing about education is that everyone wants it. Like influenza, you can give it away without losing any of it yourself. ~ Evelyn Waugh

Rising demand for animal products highlights microbiological risks, with animal-welfare measures sometimes creating new hazards. For example, open pens for poultry may increase the spread of communicable diseases like avian influenza. ~ Louise Fresco

I have a healthy disrespect for religion. I really do. When Columbus came to this country in 1492 he brought syphilis, diphtheria, tuberculosis, influenza and Christianity. The diseases were curable. ~ David Feherty

The influenza has busted me a good deal; I have no spring; and am headachy. So as my good Red Lion Counter begged me for another Butcher's Boy
I turned me to- what thinkest 'ou
to Tushery, by the mass! Ay, friend, a whole tale of tushery. And every tusher tushes me so free, that may I be tushed if the whole thing is worth a tush. The Black Arrow: A Tale of Tunstall Forest is his name: tush! a poor thing! ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

It is perfectly obvious that no one nor any single country can save the world from the horrors of tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes and winged influenza. ~ Richard Reeves

The influenza pandemic of 1918 may well be the greatest scourge ever to afflict humanity, exacting a death toll greater than all the wars of the 20th Century combined. The virus that wreaked this havoc apparently developed in birds, and then jumped to people. In other words, it was avian flu. ~ David L. Katz

There is no firm dividing line between what is an epidemic and what is not an epidemic, but I think, when you look at a map that shows widespread influenza activity in 36 states, that we regard it
from a common-sense perspective
as an epidemic. ~ Julie Gerberding

"Influence" is itself influenced, coming from an Italian word for the outbreak of a disease (influenza, outbreak). Influence is that which flows across - permeates - the boundaries of the self. ~ Laura Mullen

Consider how common illness is, how tremendous the spiritual change that it brings, how astonishing, when the lights of health go down, the undiscovered countries that are then disclosed, what wastes and deserts of the soul a slight attack of influenza brings to view, what precipices and lawns sprinkled with bright flowers a little rise of temperature reveals, what ancient and obdurate oaks are uprooted in us by the act of sickness, how we go down in the pit of death and feel the waters of annihilation close above our heads and wake thinking to find ourselves in the presence of the angels and the harpers when we have a tooth out and come to the surface in the dentist's arm-chair and confuse his "Rinse the mouth-rinse the mouth" with the greeting of the Deity stooping from the floor of Heaven to welcome us - when we think of this, as we are so frequently forced to think of it, it becomes strange indeed that illness has not taken its place with love and battle and jealousy among the prime themes of literature ~ Virginia Woolf

The avian influenza found in mainland British Columbia poses no significant threat to human health. ~ John Clifford

My father, who had previously been a civil engineer, died in the great influenza epidemic of 1918. ~ James Rainwater

a spider and a fly

i heard a spider
and a fly arguing
wait said the fly
do not eat me
i serve a great purpose
in the world

you will have to
show me said the spider

i scurry around
gutters and sewers
and garbage cans
said the fly and gather
up the germs of
typhoid influenza
and pneumonia on my feet
and wings
then i carry these germs
into households of men
and give them diseases
all the people who
have lived the right
sort of life recover
from the diseases
and the old soaks who
have weakened their systems
with liquor and iniquity
succumb it is my mission
to help rid the world
of these wicked persons
i am a vessel of righteousness
scattering seeds of justice
and serving the noblest uses

it is true said the spider
that you are more
useful in a plodding
material sort of way
than i am but i do not
serve the utilitarian deities
i serve the gods of beauty
look at the gossamer webs
i weave they float in the sun
like filaments of song
if you get what i mean
i do not work at anything
i play all the time
i am busy with the stuff
of enchantment and the materials
of fairyland my works
transcend utility
i am the artist
a creator and demi god
it is ridiculous to suppose
that i should be denied
the food ~ Don Marquis

The word 'influenza' actually means a malign influence from the stars. ~ Jostein Gaarder

We today can recognize the antiquity of astrology in words such as disaster, which is Greek for "bad star," influenza, Italian for (astral) "influence"; mazeltov, Hebrew - and, ultimately, Babylonian - for "good constellation," or the Yiddish word shlamazel, applied to someone plagued by relentless ill-fortune, which again traces to the Babylonian astronomical lexicon. According to Pliny, there were Romans considered sideratio, "planet-struck." Planets were widely thought to be a direct cause of death. Or consider consider: it means "with the planets," evidently a prerequisite for serious reflection. ~ Carl Sagan

I never indulge in rhyme or stanza Unless I'm in bed with the influenza. ~ Quintus Ennius

One reason why my memory decays is that I have three cats, all so loving and insistent that they play cat's-cradle with every train of thought. They drove me distracted while I was having influenza, gazing at me with large eyes and saying: O Sylvia, you are so ill, you'll soon be dead. And who will feed us then? Feed us now! ~ Sylvia Townsend Warner

Two epidemics swept the world in 1918. One was Spanish influenza, the first recorded outbreak of which was at a Kansas army base in March 1918. As if to mock the efforts of men to kill one another, the virus spread rapidly across the United States and then crossed to Europe on the crowded American troopships. ~ Niall Ferguson

Avian Influenza & Coronavirus?

With 2020 going the way it's going many people wouldn't be surprised if a T-Rex showed up in their suburb.
But one thing that is surprising is that in a few of the so called, 'Virus Hotspots', they are now playing host to Avian Influenza.
It has been proven that there is transmission of Covid-19 to animals. This is the case with domesticated cats and dogs. It has also proved the case with transmission to minks or vice-versa in Europe.
If the bird flu and coronavirus run simultaneously then there may be a common protein or gene that they both share. Otherwise why would there be a resurgence of the avian influenza.
Or it could just be a coincidence. ~ Anthony T Hincks

In nature, disease-causing strains of avian influenza rarely spread far because the birds sicken and die before they can fly to spread it to others. ~ Michael Greger

A pandemic influenza would mean widespread infection essentially throughout every region of the world. ~ Anthony Fauci

Do you think that they, with their Battles, Famine, Black Death and Serfdom, were less enlightened than we are, with our Wars, Blockade, Influenza, and Conscription. ~ T.H. White

Viruses like symmetrical shapes because symmetry provides a very simple means for them to multiply, and that is what makes viral diseases so infectious - in fact, that's what 'virulent' means. Traditionally, symmetry has been something people have found aesthetically appealing, whether it is seen in a diamond, a flower or the face of a supermodel. But symmetry isn't always so desirable. Some of the most deadly viruses on the biological books, from influenza to herpes, from polio to the AIDS virus, are constructed using the shape of an icosahedron. Is ~ Marcus Du Sautoy