According to Ukraine's Health Ministry (UKR), 1,031,597 people in Ukraine have fallen ill with “flu, acute respiratory illness and their complications (pneumonia, etc.)” between Oct. 29 and Nov. 9 - and 174 of them have died.

According to World Health Organization, whose experts are currently working in Ukraine, “public health measures recommended by the Ministry of Health of Ukraine across the entire country include: social distancing (school closures and cancellation of mass gatherings); enhancement of surveillance activities; increased respiratory hygiene; and continuation of the vaccination campaign against seasonal influenza targeting at risk groups.”

In the Ukrainian blogosphere, much of the discussion of the current medical emergency focuses on whether there are enough reasons to panic or not.

Maryna Reshetnyak, GV's Russian Language Health Editor, has just translated excerpts from one of the most widely read and discussed Ukrainian blog posts of the past week, written by Kharkiv-based pediatrician and author Yevgeny Komarovsky on Nov. 2. In his post (RUS), according to Maryna, Dr. Komarovsky has provided, among other things, “a balanced professional analysis of the flu epidemic” - and “shared his opinion concerning the hysteria surrounding the flu, the irresponsible appeals of politicians and the errors of public health officials.” Here is one of Dr. Komarovsky's assessments:

[…] If we double the number of people sick with the swine flu (since no more than half the people with the flu go to a doctor) and compare it with other death rates, we will see that the death rate is even lower than with the regular flu. Pneumonia is the most common cause of death in every country at any time. Pneumonia often accompanies many other diseases and traumas. If each case of pneumonia was reported by the media, nothing good will happen. […]

On Oct. 29, the day the epidemic was announced by Ukraine's Health Ministry, Lviv-based LJ user orestk carried out similar calculations (UKR) in an attempt to counter the panic:

In 2007, 205 adults died of pneumonia in Lviv region, in 2008 - 182 people. In the first nine months of 2009 - 105 people. There are 92 days in the last three months of the year. For the number of deaths to be no lower than last year, 182-105=77 more people have to die. That is, six people every week. And here we are having a panic attack because of four deaths (of adults, and there is one more - an 11-year-old girl) in the past week. Perhaps it's time to stop panicking? […]

Two weeks later, Lviv region has 74 flu/acute respiratory illness/pneumonia-related deaths, which makes it the hardest-hit region of Ukraine so far.

On Nov. 5, Natalia Zhuravlova announced (UKR) the launch of an interactive map of flu dynamics in Ukraine, as well as a number of other related widgets, on the blog of the Ukrainian branch of the Russian web portal Yandex. Here is an excerpt from her introductory post:

Because of the epidemic, various scary rumors have been spreading rapidly in Ukraine - that we are having atypical pneumonia, or that we are having lung plague, or that there are more lethal cases due to swine flu than due to regular flu. The data on the dynamics of the disease often varies [significantly].

We at Yandex choose to look at things with calm. Yes, of course, we do not want to fall ill ourselves and are worry a lot about our dear ones. But we get flu epidemics every year, and each time we are told that there hasn't been a more horrible strain, but we are still alive and healthy (knock on wood). The most important thing is that actually the numbers of those sick with flu and acute respiratory infection aren't really high, they haven't reached last year's level yet. Unfortunately, people were dying from these diseases in the previous years, too, only no one was making the statistics public. So we should not panic. And, moreover, we should not trust the unconfirmed data.

So that our users could follow the official statistics of the spread of the disease and knew where to go to for consultation and help, we've developed several useful devices.

[…]

With the help of the map and the widgets, you'll see when the epidemic begins to subside. We hope that this will happen as soon as possible.

Stay healthy! And if you're feeling sick, call the doctor. And everything will be okay.

In a post about the flu info service offered by Yandex (UKR), Ukrainian Watcher - a blog covering “social networks, blogs and internet business” - also mentions Google.org's Flu Trends portal, which “uses aggregated Google search data to estimate flu activity.” According to this resource, “flu activity” is currently assessed as “high” in Ukraine, Hungary and Poland, and as “intense” in Russia and Bulgaria.

While Belarus is not being monitored by Google.org's Flu Trends, here is what LJ user budimir wrote (RUS) on Nov. 3 about the situation there in a comments thread on a post by Kyiv-based LJ user kermanich:

[Here] they are using good old methods in their attempts to fight [the flu outbreak] - by hushing it up. They are not allowing any information whatsoever, even the most necessary.

And the panic is raging here already. Maybe even more than in Ukraine.

[…]

EVERYTHING that is even distantly related to the treatment of flu has been swept away from the pharmacies.

And yes, Minsk is wearing masks. No one is explaining to Minsk residents, however, that it is not necessary to wear masks outdoors.

[…]

In my work-related [RSS feed] that I got myself when I started doing reviews of the Belarusian blogosphere, nearly every second post is about swine flu.

There are also plenty of reports from friends and friends' friends, who are saying that “people are burning down like candles.”

And there is some first-hand info - from hospitals. [The situation is grave] there, as far as I understand.

[…]

They aren't blogging about Ukraine here, are focused on local matters instead. […]

But the government, it seems to me, is trying to portray Ukraine as the source of the infection - the first officially confirmed swine flu death of a Belarusian citizen turned out to have its origin [in Ukraine].

But this is a lie - there have been more deaths. Not from flu, of course - because they don't die of it, but of its complications - pneumonia, etc.

[…]

Here's how blogger Ivanko of Fructus temporum described the situation in the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk (pop. 173,700; Donetsk region, where, as of Nov. 8, 48,263 people have been officially confirmed to have flu) in this Oct. 31 entry (UKR):

[…] First of all, lines in pharmacies. Not too long, some ten people on the average, but considering that we have a pharmacy every 20 meters, and sometimes pharmacy kiosks stand right next to each other, it was hard not to notice such a sharp increase in demand.

After my question, “What's happened?”, people looked at me as if I… well, they looked at me unkindly.

After I learned the reason of the anxiety, I decided to buy Amizonum and Oxoline ointment [anti-viral drugs popular in Ukraine], because I didn't remember if we had them at home.

But I was too late. Amizonum had been sold out the day before, they've run out of gauze masks today, and bandages were almost gone, too. The pharmacist was dispensing her expert opinion on how to make two gauze masks out of one bandage.

I stopped by at a few more pharmacies - same thing everywhere.

[…]

Today, people were even lining up to buy medicinal herbs from an elderly lady [at the local market].

I don't know, maybe things are really that bad?

Then again, my neighbor still has a sack of overpriced salt that she bought during the latest salt anxiety. [At some point, there were false rumors in Ukraine that salt would disappear from the stores, which urged many people to store up on it in advance.]

And here is what LJ user e_grishkovets (Russian writer Evgeny Grishkovets) wrote on Nov. 5 about Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, where his shows were canceled due to the flu situation:

[…] In general, I can't recall Kyiv ever being in such a gloomy, suppressed and exhausted state. Though, of course, it would have been hard for me to perceive the city differently, considering the problems that have occurred.

[…] Theaters are closed. Ministry of culture has made this decision. But events scheduled to take place in sports facilities have not been canceled… The concert of Todes dance group at some palace of sports hasn't been canceled, a football game took place at a huge stadium yesterday, and today there is Aleksandr Rozenbaum's concert […], at the Ukraina Palace (4,000 seats). […] If someone could explain to me why these events are taking place while the theaters are closed… Where is the logic here, where is the truly thoughtful and well-justified fight against the epidemic?… […]

[…]

On my way to the airport, the driver said that for the fourth day in a row there were no traffic jams in Kyiv, and there are a lot fewer cars and people in the streets. “Everyone looks kind of beaten,” the driver said and smiled bitterly. […]

On a lighter note, Ukrainian women's organization Femen held an “anti-stress” event at Kyiv's Independence Square on Nov. 9: to cheer Kyiv residents up, a group of activists put on self-made gauze lingerie and masks. LJ user drugoi (RUS) has posted three photos from the event, and there are six more photos at Femen's LJ blog (RUS). (Natalia Antonova's Sept. 11 interview with Femen's leader Anna Gutsol is here.)

While the undressing part of Femen's prank may or may not have been an allusion to the Nov. 2 protest against Ukraine's anti-pornography law (WARNING: graphic content), carried out by the Voina radical art group, the masks do seem to be turning into a fashion item in Ukraine: here, for example, is a selection of user-designed masks on sale at one of the Ukrainian online shops. And here's a link to LJ user ellustrator's gauze mask cartoon, which may or may not allude to this photo of PM Yulia Tymoshenko wearing a mask.

Thanks to microblogging site Twitter, we have a summary of mixed reactions from Egypt and the Middle-East towards Farouk Hosny's defeat. In 140 characters, Twitter users

As expected, all Egyptians should be sad because their candidate for the UNESCO was defeated. And Hanan Abdel Meguid's sad tone was so obvious in the tweet below:

And Youssra was astonished, and it seems that she wasn't expecting him to be defeated:

But wait a moment. It looks like other than the above two tweets, no one else was sad. Even Cairo-based blogger and journalist Sarah Carr wrote the following post asking people to help her find those few ones who were sad for his defeat:

In fact, it seems the no one was able to help Sarah in her search, especially that the majority of the Egyptian Twitter users were not sad at all. Ahmed El- Sadek, for example, wrote here that he can't really say that he is sad:

Zeinobia on the other hand couldn't hide the wide smile in her tweet.

Mona Eltahawy was happy too:

She even wrote another Tweet thanking God because Farouk Hosny did not win.

And Amr Salama wrote:

So, it seems that most of the Egyptians were against him. Ahmed Shoukry wrote here to clarify that if this point of view is so common among the Egyptian blogs and tweets, then it is for sure the same point of view of the majority of people on the street:

But what really makes most of the Egyptian take such stand?!

Mona Eltahawy believes that it's because Hosny is not Egypt's candidate, but he's the Egyptian regime's candidate.

The following conversation between Mostafa Hussein, and JPierre also elaborates why people didn't want him to win:

And Cairo Gem has an almost identical point of view to Mostafa Hussein's:

AlAnany believes that Hosny tried to please both the Egyptians, the Westerners and the Israelis and at the end he pleased no one:

And as usual, all our political debates have to end with a cool conspiracy theory like this one.

For more reactions on Hosny's nomination before the election read Marwa Rakha's post here.

The ship Ilinden, which was under jurisdiction of the Ohrid Port Authority, sunk while taking tourists along the route between Ohrid and St. Naum. The ships Galeb and Aleksandrija were passing nearby and aided in the rescue efforts.

I wonder how the media dare show such footage from the disaster site [including bodies of the drowned floating under the surface]. Some Macedonian journalists are out of control… Do penalties for unethical behavior even exist? Where’s their humanity?

May the shipwreck victims rest in peace. We wish the survivors speedy recovery, both from their physical injuries and from the horrors they've experienced.

In addition, Refleksii expressed sadness and shame [MKD], fearing that the disaster struck due to incompetence and a lack of enforcement of the laws by the state.

Speaking from her experience as a licensed tourist guide, Vasilka Dimitrovska pointed out that overcrowding of boats [MKD] was not uncommon on Lake Ohrid. She noted:

No improvisation is allowed in the world of tourism. The basic difference between a tourist and an adventurer is that the former pays in advance to make sure his arrangement is safe and without any dramatic meanderings from their vacation plans.

Media expert Sead Dzigal wrote [MKD] on the Comminications blog from the shores of Lake Ohrid:

The media acted as organs of ministries, spokespersons, state services and other centers of power. One could only sadly watch the ridiculous attempts by these ORGANS to line up in the behaviorist race with the human capacity of the audience to synthesize and organize the information in their heads, as they relentlessly pumped announcements and statements which needed to amnesty every freakin’ institution from responsibility.

Even though the sorry hulk of a ship (made in 1924, when Hitler started writing Mein Kampf) had all the permits and inspections by our “state services,” even though it loaded passengers over the allowed capacity, and even though it had two life belts [MKD] on board. Nobody was responsible for that. Everybody absolved themselves with a jinx and continued minding their business and watching football. If there are indeed charges pressed against the “perpetrators” (the skipper and his first mate [MKD]), then responsibility has to be demanded by their “institutional backers and enablers.” Nobody raised that issue. The Public Broadcasting Service acted as a communist bulletin documenting the trips of the individual ministers to the site and their statements of condolence. It certainly is a service, but not a public one. It only serves the authorities, no matter who runs the administration, all these years. Such a convention of ministers on the screen can only be understood as brutal political PR. If some public official has competencies in the matter, then they should do their job, and inform the public through the proper channels, like a spokesperson. Otherwise, why pose on TV as a “benevolent onlooker of the tragedy.” Only one person who actually participated in the rescue efforts (a lady) was interviewed, all those who jumped in the water to help the victims remain anonymous. But, we were treated to numerous statements by the saddened ministers, even though the only concrete action by the one with competencies in the case was to call experts from Croatia to aid the investigation.

I (personally) assume that this is due to omnipresent corruption and reliance on political connections: if you give a person the right to squeeze profits at will, then even the loss of human life is cheap to such businessmen. Therefore, either by boat, airplane, food or medicine, tomorrow any citizen of this country can fall victim to the legal and moral decay.

Earlier, several boating accidents on Lake Ohrid claimed lives and limb of several Macedonian citizens during the last few months, without political consequences or effect on the local public officials. This time, Macedonian Minister of Transport and Communications offered his resignation immediately after the incident.

Thumbnail from Mega Star, used under a Creative Commons license