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Comments: 138 +- Science: WHO Says Swine Flu May Have Peaked In the US on Saturday November 21, @11:18AM
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Soulskill
on Saturday November 21, @11:18AM
from the also-reportedly-stole-the-cookie-from-the-cookie-jar dept.
from the also-reportedly-stole-the-cookie-from-the-cookie-jar dept.
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Hugh Pickens writes "The World Health Organization says that there were 'early signs of a peak' in swine flu activity in parts of the Northern Hemisphere, including the US. The American College Health Association, which surveys more than 250 colleges with more than three million students, said new flu cases had dropped 27 percent in the week ending on November 13th from the week before, the first drop since school resumed in the fall. Nonetheless, Dr. Anne Schuchat, the director of vaccination and respiratory disease at the CDC, chose her words carefully. 'We are in better shape today than we were a couple of weeks ago,' she says. 'I wish I knew if we had hit the peak. Even if a peak has occurred, half the people who are going to get sick haven't gotten sick yet.' Privately, federal health officials say they fear that if they concede the flu has peaked, Americans will become complacent and lose interest in getting vaccinated, increasing the chances of another wave. However, Dr. Lone Simonsen, a former CDC epidemiologist, says she expects a third wave in December or January, possibly beginning in the South again. Based on death rates in New York City and in Scandinavia, Simonsen argues that both 1918 and 1957 had mild spring waves followed by two stronger waves, one in fall and one in midwinter, adding that in the pandemic of 1889, the bulk of the deaths occurred in the third wave. 'If people think it's going away, they can think again.'"
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Who? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps it was a doctor [doctor-who-toys.com]?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Which Doctor?
Re: (Score:2)
What? I don't know.
The Doctor! (Score:2)
Doctor Who of course.
Relevance (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't the peak something that you talk about later when you are analyzing the data? Of what relevance is it to discuss a peak in this current cycle?
Where does the money go? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm somehow sceptic about the whole hype around the swine flu based on the fact that the U.S. Government alone paid nearly a billion $ for the vaccine http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2009/07/13/daily26.html [bizjournals.com], much more globally. I mean, the swine flu is even less hazardous than the normal flu, and with some good care for the immune system it does not cause much problems, so is it really necessary to spread a big panic and spend that amount of money? I mean, that's a lot of money. Rea
Re:Where does the money go? (Score:5, Insightful)
(Swine Flu) A virus that was super-contagious and infected nearly everyone, and got them sick for 2 weeks, but barely anyone would die from would be far more economically damaging than a virus that was not very contagious, but killed all those it infected. (HIV)
This is because our economy was never meant to handle a mass exodus of workers. We're lucky it wasn't worse than it was. In places in Michigan, 1/2 of entire counties got sick, and schools and businesses were closed for days.
Just because You didn't get sick doesn't mean the illness is trivial.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The big lesson here is don't listen to Fox News and CNN, and don't let Fox News and CNN dictate government policy. (And I'd blame WHO and CDC for part of this
Re: (Score:2)
Any company that goes under that quickly was standing at the edge of the abyss, this is nowhere near an economy killer. Unless the US is standing on the edge of the abyss, but that's a different problem entirely. The economy can have setbacks without going into a Great Depression II death spiral, and temporary things like people falling sick for a few weeks isn't it. There's far bigger structural issues that the US is struggling with, right now they seem to go for the credit card trap - taking up more debt
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The media circus around it is the only reason anything happened this year different than last year.
Considering the amount of FUD spread by the media, the numbers for flu cases and deaths this year isn't really higher than normal. If everyone was as paranoid about the flu every year, we'd see pretty much the same thing.
Take a good look at the CDCs weekly states for this flu season, its really not that bad. The difference is everyone saying 'OMG I GOT SWINE FLUZ I'M GONNA DIE STAY AWAY AND SAVE YOURSELF!@$!
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Except that:
A. The only reason for the higher death rate in young people is that we're seeing significant immunity in older people as a result of exposure to several similar strains in the past. Therefore, the proportional death rate in young people is high because they're the only ones getting it. The odds of dying from it if you catch it are not much higher than seasonal flu---less than a factor of two or so in the U.S., IIRC, which is bad, but not "kills a third of the population" bad or anything.
B. We
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Simple - if it mutates, the vaccine us useless. If you're healthy, the vaccine is useless. If you take normal precautions, the vaccine is useless.
If, on the other hand you're an obese tub of lard with other pre-existing conditions from lifestyle diseases, you'll just die a bit younger. And in the 1918 "flu pandemic", most deaths were from pneumonia and tuberculosis - not flu. Even then, the flu was just being opportunistic.
And we knew before the "onset" of the current "pandemic" that it wasn't going
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Simple - if it mutates, the vaccine us useless. If you're healthy, the vaccine is useless. If you take normal precautions, the vaccine is useless.
All those points are wrong. A vaccine might still provide partial resistance even to a mutation. If you have the flu, you aren't healthy. And you can still catch the flu, if you merely take normal precautions.
Re: (Score:3)
Acai berry is provably a less potent antioxidant than cheaper and more prevalent foods. Not to mention that antioxidants have no proven benefits. None. Your anecdote notwithstanding, antioxidants are bogus. On the other hand, vitamin D is really fucking important, so taking 0.25mg a day is probably a good idea. There's not much of a link between it and the immune system, but you'll be safe from rickets.
How about the following to protect from illness: Wash your hands. Don't touch your face. Get enough rest.
BS (Score:3, Insightful)
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This is more like saying a hurricane might be over while in the eye of the hurricane, where past hurricanes have had a history of dissipating when the eye reached this geographical location. It might not play out the same this time, but there is a pretty good chance that it will.
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You can't know something has peaked or bottomed out until way after the fact. It's like having a sign of relief when in the eye of a hurricane or ignoring the possibility of aftershocks from earthquakes.
They have pretty good infection models for the flu. So yes, they can have a good idea of when the flu peaks.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You can't be CERTAIN until after the fact, that's why the use of words and phrases like "hopeful", "may have", and even "I wish I knew".
For example, if you have observed both the leading and trailing walls of a hurricane pass you have reason to hope it's over. It COULD come back around or trigger a secondary storm, so you can't be sure but you have ample reason for hope (just don't bet your life on it).
At the same time it's intresting to see media sources desperately clinging to the "OMG! WE'RE ALL GONNA DI
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True, but we're can pretty accurately say it. See the interesting thing about 'the swine flu' is that if you account for the media FUD skewing the numbers then it really ISN'T THAT DIFFERENT THAN EVERY OTHER YEAR.
Yes there are more reports this year, because 90% of the public who would have just 'had the flu' and kept going like they have every other year for the past several thousand, this year they stay home. They went to the doctor. They told their friends. They made others stay away from them and st
Yes, it is less now ... (Score:4, Informative)
Here in Canada, my doctor said yesterday that he is seeing a drop in people coming in with flu symptoms. It used to be more in the past few weeks.
Also, Google Flu Trends [google.org] shows a marked drop. In the USA [google.org], there is a drop too.
I have also observed less absence at my little kid's school as well.
Seasonal flu wave yet to come (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder how bad the seasonal flu wave will be this year. With all the excitement about swine flu, seasonal flu vaccinations seem to be forgotten.
I've been undergoing cancer treatment for the past five years and usually get the shot to reduce the chance of getting the flu while I'm busy fighting something else. But this year my oncologist's office ran out of the vaccine between my monthly checkups. My backup plan is to get the shot at work or a drugstore, but I haven't seen any information about those clini
What percentage died with and without vaccination? (Score:3, Interesting)
We are still struggling to find the real effects of vaccination in The Netherlands. Many people think they shouldn't bother.
So are there any statistics about fatality rate of swine flu versus 'regular' flu and also vaccinated vs. non-vaccinated?
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Re:What percentage died with and without vaccinati (Score:2)
Well, the regular flu on average kills 30,000 per year in the US. The swine flu was projected to START at 40,000 and go as high at 100,000.
So far the swine flu has only killed 4,000.
And I bet there will be no coverage on how many die from the regular flu this season.
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And so if we DID just watch the peak go by, that would imply a total of about 8,000 once the tail passes.
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My current statistics is that in Norway a little over 20 people have died - most with complicating diseases - while 2-300 die each year in traffic accidents. In other words, I find it completely and utterly blown out of any proportion and there's probably not enough deaths to make decent statistics, not unless you gather all of them worldwide. I'm not getting vaccinated, and honestly they could have skipped the whole damn thing. Yes, some more people would lose a week's worth of work but they'd handle the f
Re:What percentage died with and without vaccinati (Score:2)
The CDC has, somewhere buried on its site that I found a month or so back some states about the mortality rates, sorry I'm not going to bother to find you a link but if you look hard enough google will for you.
Summary:
This strain of H1N1 seasonal a. AKA the swine flu:
Mortality rate of %0.05
The standard average over the last 50 years or so for the seasonal strains combined is %0.16
So last year, 3 times more people would have died from the flu last year than this year. Total deaths accounted to it will be hi
Google Flu Trends (Score:3, Informative)
Interestingly, Google Flu Trends [google.org] shows similar signs, although there the peak already occured in October.
Peak swine flu (Score:2, Funny)
OK, peak oil is bad enough. But now also peak swine flu? Imagine the effects on the vaccine producers!
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Theory, not history. (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd be a lot more inclined to believe a well proven theory than simply looking at the history of past epidemics. With so much talk about history predicting the present, it indicates to me that the knowledge of how epidemics work and how viruses mutate is extremely poor. As an example, we can fairly accurately predict where a hurricane will move in the next few days, but I've never heard anyone say "well, in 1992 Hurricane Andrew went west, then south, then east. It's possible Hurricane XYZ might take a s
The WHO is horrible. (Score:5, Funny)
yea, right (Score:3, Insightful)
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Yes, the media needs new FUD to keep their ratings up, way to fall for the trap.
That would be nice! (Score:3, Interesting)
Is there supposed to be only one peak ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Go back to bed (Score:2)
For fuck's sake, people, swine flu is not a problem.
It is the flu. It is annoying. It is contagious. It might kill you if you already have pneumonia, and it might kill you if you are really young. This is normal behavior for the flu. It came from pigs, and this does not make a single god damned bit of difference.
If vaccine was available, people would get it (Score:3, Informative)
Our whole family just had H1N1 and yet none of us could get a vaccine beforehand, not even our 2 year old daughter. If vaccine was available, all of us would have gotten it. To top the confusion, the doctor is still asking us to get the shot when it becomes available. Give me a frigging break.
Now what amazes me is that our daughter coughed for 2 days and then she was fine, while we are still sick after 3 weeks. Daycares must create some kind of mutant immune systems that put interspecies viruses to shame.
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"Now what amazes me is that our daughter coughed for 2 days and then she was fine, while we are still sick after 3 weeks."
Anecdotes /= data, but this appears to be pretty common. I've had post-flu bronchitis for a couple of weeks and some others locally for more than a month.
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Our whole family just had H1N1 and yet none of us could get a vaccine beforehand, not even our 2 year old daughter. If vaccine was available, all of us would have gotten it. To top the confusion, the doctor is still asking us to get the shot when it becomes available. Give me a frigging break.
Same here, and I'm pissed. I got the seasonal vaccine in early October and would have taken both had they been available.
This is the only aspect of healthcare that the Federal government has complete control over. Th
Ad Hoc Medicine (Score:2)
We had a 1976 "pandemic" too. They called it off when 10 people got Guillian-Barre syndrome from the vaccinations. 25 have this time, and they haven't called it off yet. In neither case was morbidity or mortality of the 'swine flu' greater than that of common variants.
I've seen good evidence that someone innoculated against H1N1 only won't get it. I've seen none that shows they can't carry it. I've seen some that suggests those who get the "seasonal" vaccine only are more likely to get H1N1. There's enough
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It tells you for how long the swine flu excuse will work.
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So what country do we have to invade to fight against the pandemists?
Re:"Pandemics" are the new "terrorists". (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
I think you are correct. (Score:2)
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Considering that the majority of deaths in the so-called flu pandemic of 1918 were actually [gaia-health.com] from tuberculosis (which would have made it a tuberculosis pandemic) and pneumonia [wikipedia.org] ...
Just like today, it was mostly killing off people who had weakened immune systems and chronic diseases.
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I am certain that the next one will be how the internet is enabling countries like China and India to take jobs away from the USA. People, afraid for their livelihood, will pressure the government into placing heavy restrictions on internet content and distribution.