Re: >^..^< The cats on 2 May 2009
- From: tmcd@xxxxxxxxx (Tim McDaniel)
- Date: Mon, 4 May 2009 18:37:41 +0000 (UTC)
In article <498f611e-f5db-4b58-82bf-c2cf2f0128dd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Harry Mary Andruschak <adoptsoldcats@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Anyone out there as bored by the over-hyped A/H1N1 "pandemic" as I
am?
Disclaimer: I'm no expert.
"A pandemic can start when three conditions have been met: a new
influenza virus subtype emerges; it infects humans, causing serious
illness; and it spreads easily and sustainably among humans."
<http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_influenza/avian_faqs/en/>
As for "serious illness", the evaluation is changing, but a disease
that is not very lethal per 1,000 infected, but infects almost
everyone, is still going to cause many deaths total.
<http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1215>
See figure 2 and its caption. It's a plot of deaths from flu and
pneumonia in the UK per 1,000 population, plotted versus date from
June 1918 to May 1919.
Figure 2. Combined flu and pneumonia deaths in the United Kingdom
during the great 1918 flu pandemic showed that the flu had three
distinct peaks: one in June - July (a relatively mild form of the
disease), followed by an extremely deadly outbreak in October,
then another during the winter of 1918 - 1919. The 1918 flu
pandemic infected 1/3 of the world's population, killing 50 - 100
million people.
<http://bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=aOQY_k40bb88> has
some other in-depth information. It does say
Swine flu is killing fewer people and producing milder symptoms
than the world's previous influenza outbreaks, an "encouraging"
sign for an illness that is spreading easily, the U.S. chief for
disease fighting [Besser] said.
and other text saying that it's mild, but also
Besser said it's important to remain "aggressive" this early, and
he said there's no evidence that health officials have
overreacted. ...
Data so far suggest that the outbreak is striking younger patients
than is typical for influenza, and younger patients than usual are
entering hospitals. ...
Gregory Hartl, a spokesman for the WHO, said on a conference call
today that this outbreak of H1N1 "could be the first wave" and the
real test will be after autumn starts in the Northern Hemisphere.
--
Tim McDaniel, tmcd@xxxxxxxxx
.
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