Comments on: Swine Flu Will Likely Sicken Billions But Kill at a Low Rate

By: cr

cr — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 12:09:23 +0000

That .4 % CFR is, “best case”- which will not be available come surge.

Toss-up which happens first;
“JIT” PPE delivery-and the other 80% of our imported medical drugs/supplies stop,
or too many HCW are sick/dead, or,
“planned for years to be ’scarce’” Tamiflu runs out-(already people in the US and elsewhere are being denied it, who should have been on it within 48 hours of symptoms) or
the beds/ICU units/vent fill up.

[And the 'collateral deaths start; deaths caused by pandemic disruptions were not taken into account in 'planning'- indeed hardly anything useful was done anywhere;
local officials have gone from 4 years of, 'hope pandemic doesn't happen' to,
'hope there's an effective vaccine in quantity in time' - Too late!]

Already hospitals in the N.hemisphere have cancelled non-emergency surgery because panflu cases are taking up all available resources.

-As we get into, “altered standards of care”; no antivirals and no hospital available,
then the CFR will rise to its, “untreated” CFR, as was seen in Mexico at the start,
which the WHO put at 2% average CFR
- some age groups had much higher; up to 5+% CFR-
see the WHO weekly report for May 22, 2nd page in for CFR by age decade:
http://www.who.int/wer/2009/wer8421.pdf
or, see how Argetina and Guatemala are doing now;
try the, “PFI Pandemic Flu Information Forum” for news.)

Since the ‘planned’ NPIs were abandoned for some last-minute ’status quo’ commerce and profit (just as authorities did in 1918, with few exceptions- but, the cities that proactively did the most to reduce transmissions lost the fewest people)
we are in for, “tragic” Consequences.

By: Madeleine

Madeleine — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 06:30:50 +0000

New viral strains don’t arise because of general stress to ‘the environment’. It’s not like some kind of karmic payback. It’s more of a “given enough time, something like this is bound to occur” situation.

By: szai

szai — Fri, 15 May 2009 08:25:01 +0000

Everything living has everything to do with evolution. This virus has evolved to affect mainly young adults and teens. Whenever a certain portion of a population is killed off, and the survivors are left to carry on, well, simply put, that’s natural selection at work. You could argue that the virus could be at least partially man-made, and thus not “natural”, but how is a human using a micropipette any less natural than a chimp using a stick to catch ants?

By: jon

jon — Thu, 14 May 2009 03:23:22 +0000

gwenny, this has absolutely nothing to do with evolution. It has everything to do with peoples’ immune systems.

By: Gwenny

Gwenny — Wed, 13 May 2009 19:03:16 +0000

Evolution at work, folks. We are stressing the environment and the environment is stressing back.

By: FILTHpig

FILTHpig — Wed, 13 May 2009 16:56:25 +0000

Really FactChecker2? Worser? Maybe you should say “more worse” or “a lot more worser”, sorry, I had to say it…

By: Scott

Scott — Tue, 12 May 2009 23:19:02 +0000

That still comes to 8-9 million deaths worldwide. I’d say that qualifies as pretty severe.

By: Don

Don — Tue, 12 May 2009 22:38:17 +0000

Well, low compared to the Spanish Flu. And minuscule compared to H5N1 (heaven forbid it should become as contagious like swine flu without losing its virulence).

By: Rocket

Rocket — Tue, 12 May 2009 21:10:48 +0000

It appears to me that the US death rate is vastly different than the global rate at approximately .12%. That is not materially different than the seasonal flu. If that holds, then the number of deaths will be determined by whether the prediction of a 300% increase in infections materializes. A responsive immunization program in the US seems to be a no brainer.

By: FactChecker2

FactChecker2 — Tue, 12 May 2009 18:37:10 +0000

Okay: so more than three times as many people (compared with the seasonal numbers) may get this novel pandemic strain of flu. (33% attack rate vs. 10% attack rate)

And four times as many of the sick will die than in the normal flu season (0.4% Case Fatality Rate compared with less than 0.1% during an average flu season.

So if there are an average of 36,000 flu deaths in the U.S. per year, this swine-origin flu virus could produce more than 432,000 deaths in the U.S., if the estimates in the article come to pass.

And also, in the average flu season, most of the 36,000 deaths are in the elderly or the very young. But this new swine-origin flu virus seems to be attacking mostly young adults and teens, and barely touching the over-50 crowd.

So we may be talking about more than 432,000 deaths of otherwise healthy teenagers and young adults.

Glad you see this as killing “at a low rate.” There’s always a worser case out there somewhere, isn’t there?