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Well,
folks my blood pressure peaked again this week, and not because of
Pailin’s resignation as governor.
Did
you see the UK Health Secretary’s pig-flu warning? Argentina’s weekly
figures? The New England Journal of Medicine?
The
UK is predicting 100,000 new cases of pig flu PER DAY by the end of August
— that’s August THIS YEAR. As in 60 DAYS hence!!!! (Why don’t they
say “by September” instead of “by the end of August”?)
They
are predicting 40 deaths a DAY by “the end of September;” i.e. by
October. Here’s a
link:
The 40 deaths number is way, way low relative to the new cases number —
it’s only 0.04%. I believe CDC estimates for flu death rates generally
range from 0.5% to 2.0% of cases. Even the lower figure of 0.5% would mean
500 deaths per day in the UK. Don’t even want to think about the upper
figure. Don’t even want to think about the US figures will be, but based
strictly on population, the UK number converts to 500,000 new cases a day
for the US.
According
to the Independent article above, the UK govt has already cut off
treatment for infected folks. If you have symptoms, you have to quarantine
yourself and call the pharmacy, which can’t really do anything but send
aspirin.
And
you know how governments are. If the UK government is sending out this
message, . . . well, you know it must be 5x worse than what they tell the
public. Most governments, including Obama, are keeping the lid on this,
but it’s coming up on us real quick now. I’m just glad the US has
Homeland Security to get the country through this. Ha, ha, ha, ha. BTW, I
wonder where Michael Brown is.
But
the bad news continued last week . . . in
Argentina, the number of new cases jumped from 1000 the previous week
to 100,000 last week.
And there was more . . . the New
England Journal of Medicine published the first analysis of the
pig-flu cases in Mexico. This is probably the most detailed analysis of
the new H1N1 demographics so far.
Similarities
with the 1918 pig-flu pandemic that killed 50 million people (no one seems
to have a number for the pigs) are what makes today’s pandemic scary.
The 1918 pandemic also started off as little more than a whimper in the N.
Hemisphere spring, smoldered during the summer, and exploded during the
flu season. In 1918, the victims, both in terms of infections and deaths,
were disproportionately young adults.
The
Mexican study shows the same pattern. Normally, the bulk of seasonal flu
infections (60%) and almost all deaths are distributed among those younger
than 5 and older than 60, in fact, mostly older than 80. The age group 15-
44 represents only 8% of the seasonal cases. But the pig-flu cases in
Mexico, 64% of the cases were in the 15-44 age range, which is similar to
what people think the 1918 flu looked like. There are no accurate numbers
for 1918.
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