Thanks MMM! 
There was suspicion that higher death rates had to do with not seeking prompt medical treatment which may have some correlation to poverty or culture.
I don't know the culture well, and I am sure there are many differences in the different areas and aspects of the culture and sub or alternate cultures.
The Yucatan Peninsula including 3 states of Yucatan, Campeche, and Quintana Roo is somewhat different from the mainland in general I've read. I've been reading more on the history lately; very interesting. The US was invited to take control during the 1840s; Santa Anna was pretty mean to them too - but that didn't go thru and probly wouldn't have worked so well during our civil war.
Today, with faster travel, interstate TV and other media, mainlanders immigrating over the decades to develop the tourist areas started 40 years ago by the Banco de Mexico, I'm sure there are more similarities that even bleed over into the rural Mayan culture somewhat. I am rambling a bit, but wanted to reference differences and similarities both of the mainland areas where this infection hit hard as compared to the Yuc-Pen which has been essentially spared.
In addition to the possibilities or the poor not seeking medical attention rapidly;
There is also the Farmicia influence, with over the counter antibiotics and many other meds that we in the US see as prescription only - leading to more self medicating, which would have failed horribly in this outbreak I think. Ampicillin is cheap and easy to acquire there, I got some from my Cancun dentist in March but also a couple of more packs to bring home since it is so much cheaper than here - not that I'm any better at self medicating, but I like to keep it handy.
Then there is the Farmicist playing doctor in many cases, which is more like a sales consultant it seems. That's legal and common in all of Mexico I think, and probly works okay in many cases - but may have lead people to avoid real doctors and hospitals when they really should have been going in, as well as the risk of developing ampicillin resistant bacteria strains.
And there are the villages without doctors. Seen many of them on the drive to Holbox and I'm sure they're common across the Yuc-Pen and much of Mexico.
So I can see many challenges there. It's good that we have educated professionals who understand all this more and can offer suggestions based on better information, but it helps my acceptance to understand these facets somewhat.
(although if that's the difference, I'm really screwed because I usually don't get a flu shot).
Yeah, that sucks. I used to post reminder threads in the fall but quit. Too many people posting why they didn't - many of the posts involving false science and just absurd statements. It's a personal call, but generally a good idea. Glad I usually do.
We also don't have enough information to know how deadly this is compared to normal influenza in the vulnerable population. It seems like about every 10 posts someone else quotes the statistics yet again that 36,000 people die every year from influenza -- which means that if this bug is completely ignorable in the healthy adult population it can still kill 36,000 people in the US just by being 2x more lethal in the vulnerable population.
I'm not clear on what you just said there, but yeah - those "so what" posts are funny. This infection has given us a break, but it's still different; no reason to think that we'll only have 36,000 losses this coming season.
That's not quite accurate. When you catch the flu, whatever strain you have, you build up antibodies for that and only that strain. The vaccinations they make every year are a coctail of different strains of the flu combined which cause you to make antibodies for all of them. Ever since the last swine flu scare in 1977 they've added that version of the H1N1 to the coctail. Catching the regular human flu will give you no antibodies or resistance what's so ever to the so called swine flu. The H1N1 strain in the already used vaccine may only give partial protection against this new (A)H1N1 however. I guess partial is better than none.
Yeah, I think there are usually 3 strains included in the vaccine, including 1 H1C1 that
might have helped developed some resistances in us old coots who have been getting the shots all those decades.
It's interesting to note there have been no reported cases on the Rio Grande other than in the lower Valley and in El Paso north along the river into New Mexico? It seems to have made air travel entries into many spots across the US, but for ground travel - only in a few spots, then worked up the RG into NM. Or are cases not being well reported on the RG? It's a long border to watch, but surely has been more closely. Map below, or larger version available from thumbnail here...
Then got to wonder about the illegal entries too...?
