Monday, May 11, 2009
“While Substantial Uncertainty Remains, Clinical Severity [of Swine Flu] Appears Less Than That Seen In 1918 But Comparable With That Seen In 1957”
A study published today in the journal Science concludes:
While substantial uncertainty remains, clinical severity [of the current swine flu] appears less than that seen in 1918 but comparable with that seen in 1957.
The 1957 flu killed about 2 million people, which is between four and eight times more deadly than a typical seasonal flu epidemic which cause between 250,000 to 500,000 deaths each year, according to the World Health Organization.
The 1918 flu killed between 50 to 100 million people.
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It was lethal enough in May;
ReplyDelete29% in US hospitals had zero, "underlying conditions" and same in June.
33% of the reported US deaths are ages 24 and under.
64% of the reported US deaths are 25 to 64 (about double what % that age group is of, "hospitalized more than 24 hours" cases).
See pdf p 12: http://88.80.13.160.nyud.net/leak/us-cdc-swine-flu-9-jun-2009.pdf
Completely unlike seasonal flu for ages impacted; Boston as of June 16th only had 8% of "confirmed" cases over age 45 !
http://ma-publichealth.typepad.com/files/bphc-h1n1fluupdate.pdf
The 18 to 44 age group has twice as many women confirmed with the virus as men,
those ages most needed ventilators, and that's been the only age group with a reported fatality, so far.
With hospital care, deaths can lag hospitalization by two or three weeks, or more.
Also, access to timely antivirals can keep the fatality rate down, and most people have no access.
The US "goal was to never buy antivirals for 75% of the population, and some states didn't bother to get 25% stockpiled, despite H5N1, the reason we were in Pandemic Alert since 2005, being fatal without a ten day course started within 48 hours. What happens when H5N1 Containment fails or it mixes with H1N1 in places like China, Indonesia, Egypt or other nations whove been fighting H5N1 clusters and now also have "swine flu" Firstwave in the community?