The World Health Organization reports that as of June 17 there are 39,520 cases reported of pandemic swine flu or pandemic novel H1N1. 167 deaths due to the pandemic are reported. Of course, the country with the greatest number of cases, the U.S, only reports on Friday so the total is very understated. We are reporting 20,630 cases in the United States as of June 17.

Latin American nations marked with this color.

Here is a list of every nation reporting over 100 cases of pandemic swine flu.

The WHO is set to announce officially that novel H1N1 or swine flu has reached official pandemic status. That is a phase six. This is the first influenza pandemic since the Hong Kong flu of 1968.

A pandemic declaration is based on the spread of the illness and not necessarily upon how deadly it is. Of the four influenza pandemics in modern times, 1918 Spanish Flu, the 1957 Asian Flu and the 1968 Hong Kong Flu, this outbreak appears to be the mildest. That could change but for now we have an influenza pandemic from a mild strain.

This declaration puts national governments on the spot. Most have prepared a pandemic flu plan with the steps that they would take when a pandemic is declared. For many nations, this means expenditure of money and resources they do not have. As with many international agreements, the wealthier countries are far readier and able to comply.

The United States plan can be found at PandemicFlu.gov. The plan provides for eventualities such as a very deadly illness that might require internal travel restrictions and quarantines.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) are your best source for authoritative information about influenza, swine flu, and the steps you should be taking.

I just returned from a mandated course on Weapons of Mass Destruction that is required for my NYS EMT recertification. It was a steaming pile of crap.

The “All Hazards” approach is the one being taught now. So, for the first 45 minutes we talked about how little money the US has offered Burma for cyclone relief and how the “government” failed the people of New Orleans. You see, all those people who had been cared for by the government for four generations were abandoned and they didn’t know enough to evacuate on their own.

So, the talk began with liberal politics and continued in that manner.

Explosives has been added to the list of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Follow me on this, it’s interesting. The instructor points to Oklahoma City, then moves to “We’ve all been exposed to WMD” as slides appear showing firearms. Yes, the Public Health weenies that consider firearms crimes as an epidemic have infected WMD training.

Columbine was a WMD event, apparently, though I somehow missed that announcement. Now I know because I took the NYS class.

Oh, and BTW, the people that died at the WTC did so because they were following their emergency plan. I guess Rick Rescorla was an idiot.

Essentially, the class was an exercise in attempting to conflate civilian incidents, including but not limited to haz mat incidents, with WMD attacks. Eric Rudolph came up as an example. Crazed bombers like him and Ted Kuzinscki are WMD for our purposes.

Curiously, the instructor maintained that there had never been an insurgent terrorist attack on US soil. I recalled for her the FALN attack on Congress in the late 1940′s and the Black Muslim attack in Washington in the 1970′s. I could have gone on but she wanted to talk about other matters.

We got the usual crap about bird flu and pandemics, without a mention that most people have lived through at least one flu pandemic.

And… as a final criticism, she managed to discuss car bombs without mentioning that both Oklahoma City and WTC I were VIED’s.