For the curious - Swine Flu Thread

[Killbert-Robby]

Well while I think Swine Flu isnt as bad as the media makes it out to be, that graph goes for the other extreme. The Swine Flu is a relatively new disease, and the regular flu has been around long enough to be in every country in the world. Swine flu is still maturing, in a sense. It's kind of like.... laser weapons have just been invented, and a test subject was killed, and someone puts up a graph saying that laser weapons are harmless because 13x more people are killed by lightning in a year than laser weapons. I'm not afraid of the swine flu because I can pick up antibiotics on the street corner for a couple bucks. But I have a feeling that if I was living in a shanty town in Brazil I'd be a little more worried.

[Rkolter]

Well spoken.

I was going to say that swine flu suffers from y2k syndrome - the public's incorrect belief that a lack of a serious situation means that there was no issue to begin with. But really, the potential for the serious situation hasn't yet come to pass, although I think the public is already suffering from fatigue about the whole issue.

You have to give credit to the spunky little virus that's gone from one index case March 30th to over 5000 confirmed cases in 31 countries in just six weeks.

[Jpac]

A silver lining I find is that as the number of confirmed cases in the United States increases, the confirmed mortality rate decreases. Back when the 23 month old babe in Texas died I had people telling me that one out of 48 people died or some rolleyeable statement. Now that they're checking more people and confirming more cases, the rate is less than a tenth of a percent, which isn't so much to panic about . . . unless some fool tries to project those numbers to the entire population of the United States.

They take literary license with a fact or two (they say 97% of the world got infected with the 1918 Spanish Flu for example), but overall, I reccomend it if you're curious about the history of the flu.

When stats like those are quoted by the news (or take for instance the one from WHO where the organization expects 2 billion people to be infected over the course of two years in the case of a pandemic) they really take things out of context.

On a CDC page about H1N1, it mentions a 1988 death of a woman that had visited an exhibition with pigs four days prior to her passing. In a follow up experiment testing others who visited that exhibition, 76% of the individuals tested showed antibodies for the virus, but none of those individuals showed much in the way of symptoms. Many people get the virus and don't even know it. While I see the media mention that most people will not have symptoms, I think the news should stress the fact more.

[Rkolter]

The 2 billion infected number is actually quite reasonable - about 30%, if the virus goes through the population in multiple waves as many pandemics have. But as you said, the issue is that many of those 2 billion will never know they were infected - or will know because they caught... ta da... the flu. Even with the Spanish flu of 1918 although there are literally millions of grim horror stories, the majority of infected had nothing more than regular flu symptoms.

The current death rate is about 1%, not a tenth of a percent - a tenth of a percent is the nominal death rate of the yearly flu. But as you say, as confirmed cases grow, the death percent drops too. A better way to look at it is that a bit better than 3% of the infected have had to go into the hospital in the United States. But you have to assume that some of those people themselves just went to the hospital out of an abundance of caution.

Again the key to remember is that tiny percentages of big numbers are themselves big numbers, and that the current swine flu is pretty mild, even in comparison to normal flu. We'll see if it develops into something worse.

[Jpac]

The current death rate is about 1%, not a tenth of a percent .

Sorry. That was me being a bit self centered. I usually find myself explaining to Americans that this isn't as big as some might make it out to be. I'm thinking of CDC numbers, those strictly concerning the United States. It's not nice to forget the rest of the world though.

Actually, I just noticed there was a third confirmed death. So it's not a tenth of a percent even by my original thinking. Bleh.

[Rkolter]

Your friend, 2009 H1N1.

[McDuffies]

Aww, it's cute!

[Netpoet]

meh, it blinked.

[Phact0rri]

I <3 h1n1. he's like a grape bunch!

[Joel Fagin]

I'm not afraid of the swine flu because I can pick up antibiotics on the street corner for a couple bucks.

Antibiotics are for bacteria. Viruses are the ones which are competely impossible to cure. Your immune system either kicks them out and you get better or you die.

Vaccines prevent you from getting the virus and anti-virals slow the virus down, giving your immune system that much more time to work out a counter offensive, but so far we haven't been able to find a cure for even one virus, cunning little bleeders that they are.

Speaking of which, I have a cold.

- Joel Fagin

[Turnsky]

The 2 billion infected number is actually quite reasonable - about 30%, if the virus goes through the population in multiple waves as many pandemics have. But as you said, the issue is that many of those 2 billion will never know they were infected - or will know because they caught... ta da... the flu. Even with the Spanish flu of 1918 although there are literally millions of grim horror stories, the majority of infected had nothing more than regular flu symptoms.

The current death rate is about 1%, not a tenth of a percent - a tenth of a percent is the nominal death rate of the yearly flu. But as you say, as confirmed cases grow, the death percent drops too. A better way to look at it is that a bit better than 3% of the infected have had to go into the hospital in the United States. But you have to assume that some of those people themselves just went to the hospital out of an abundance of caution.

Again the key to remember is that tiny percentages of big numbers are themselves big numbers, and that the current swine flu is pretty mild, even in comparison to normal flu. We'll see if it develops into something worse.

the way the media's been going on about it lately, you'd think it has already disposed of millions... makes me think of something else.... hrm...

[Jpac]

I like how newspapers talk about how deadly the virus will be if it has such and so characteristic, then in fewer, weaker words it offers it's "balance" with someone saying how we don't know the strength or scope of H1N1 at this time. I still keep hearing people talk about how H1N1 kills THE HEALTHIEST "much like the 1918 Spanish Flu!", even though there's been no clinical confirmation of such.

I actually don't hear much about it any more though. Maybe I'm not watching enough news. But, like all things, the fear factor on this thing has run dry. Now it's time to get back to calling Michael Jackson bizarre, Britney Spears neglectful, and Barack Obama the Obamatron 2000....Wait, I think I made that last one up myself.

[Rkolter]

I like how newspapers talk about how deadly the virus will be if it has such and so characteristic, then in fewer, weaker words it offers it's "balance" with someone saying how we don't know the strength or scope of H1N1 at this time. I still keep hearing people talk about how H1N1 kills THE HEALTHIEST "much like the 1918 Spanish Flu!", even though there's been no clinical confirmation of such.

It does NOT kill the healthiest, however it DOES disproportionately affect the young, like most pandemic influenza does. That may be what they mean?

[Killbert-Robby]

Ok I read some fear mongering in the paper about how we'd all die if H1N1 and SARs combined into a super virus. Now, I know that viruses don't have sex, but considering this was in a major fucking newspaper, I want confirmation its bullshit so I can feel superior.

[Joel Fagin]

Ok I read some fear mongering in the paper about how we'd all die if H1N1 and SARs combined into a super virus. Now, I know that viruses don't have sex, but considering this was in a major fucking newspaper, I want confirmation its bullshit so I can feel superior.

Well, in Australia, they're worried it'll merge with the existing flu strains that always come out this time of year. But, then, they're all the same species there.

- Joel Fagin

[Rkolter]

Ok I read some fear mongering in the paper about how we'd all die if H1N1 and SARs combined into a super virus. Now, I know that viruses don't have sex, but considering this was in a major fucking newspaper, I want confirmation its bullshit so I can feel superior.

Viruses absolutely do swap DNA and produce new unique viruses. If this is your definition of sex, then viruses have sex.

However, it's unlikely that H1N1 and SARS will combine. It could happen... but it's not likely to happen. Influenza does tend to swap genes with other Influenza viruses though - very, very freely. Too freely. There are two major worries with H1N1 and other viruses:

1) That it will pick up genes from the existing flu that's coming into season in the southern hemisphere, and will become more virulent.

2) That it will pick up genes from H5N1 bird flu, and gain some of that flu's particularly unpredecented lethality - or the reverse - that given how many people will likely catch H1N1, that H5N1 Bird Flu (which is an Influenza) may just pick up genes allowing to to transmit freely between humans from H1N1. Over 25% of H5N1 Bird Flu cases are lethal - compare to Spanish Flu, which even with far lesser medical facilities of 1918, was only 2-3% lethal.

It could also simply mutate on it's own - viruses, and particularly Influenza viruses, do that all the time.

But H1N1 and SARS? I wouldn't hold your breath.

[Jpac]

I like how newspapers talk about how deadly the virus will be if it has such and so characteristic, then in fewer, weaker words it offers it's "balance" with someone saying how we don't know the strength or scope of H1N1 at this time. I still keep hearing people talk about how H1N1 kills THE HEALTHIEST "much like the 1918 Spanish Flu!", even though there's been no clinical confirmation of such.

It does NOT kill the healthiest, however it DOES disproportionately affect the young, like most pandemic influenza does. That may be what they mean?

I'd be okay if they were saying that. But the earliest reports speculated on the possibility that novel H1N1 would be like the 1918 Spanish flu which apparently had its greatest affect on those with the strongest immune system. (I tried to find a link to what I'd read, but I never saw those particular words in my search. I may have just seen sloppy journalism, or been mixing laymen talk in with news media jabber. Articles from late April noting the 20-45 age group in the first cases of mortality reported is the closest I can get to what I mentioned before.) It wasn't until later that people like Dr. Peter Palese up in Mt. Sinai in New York came in with actual clinical laboratory information and told the papers that older people have had more exposure to H1N1 viruses over their lifetime and may have some degree of protection beyond younger people. People like him don't get much air time though.

I think the papers were trying to insinuate a catastrophe larger than what we already have. Do we honestly need to sensationalize the potential of death any more than is already evident? It's like thousands of deaths aren't enough for them. They have to insinuate billions may die. So much of it feels like shock media to me.

[Aster Azul]

Everyone dressed as pigs in the Bay to Breakers this year.

[Rkolter]

Everyone dressed as pigs in the Bay to Breakers this year.

Dammit, it's always disheartening to see your creation fail to achieve it's goals.

And by creation I mean swine flu. By goals, I mean kill you.

In other words, welcome back.

[Rkolter]

As of Tuesday 6-02 according to Wikileaks, which leaked the director of the CDC's summary on Swine Flu.

06-02:
10,673 infections
716 hospitalizations (6.7%) - this is higher than the seasonal flu.
17 deaths - 0.15% - this is similar to the seasonal flu.
http://file.sunshinepress.org:54445/us- ... n-2009.pdf


The hospitalizations are (probably) higher because the very young are preferentially targetted by this flu, and because the infirm are more likely to be hospitalized due to the side effects of the flu.

Basically, still nothing to worry about. There is however, a small outbreak of avian flu right now in Egypt, and the number of cases is ramping up in the southern hemisphere, in countries without adequate medical systems. So again, don't fear. Just keep it in the back of your mind.