Swine Flu Questions
 

Driving into work this morning, I heard about the first death in the US attributed to swine flu. It was a 23 month old child in Texas.:cry:

I know that the elderly and the very young are always high risk when it comes to flu, but I started wondering what the annual death rate of the elderly and very young for your "normal, everyday strain" of flu is that doesn't make the news?

Is this swine flu story just another thing that the media is blowing way out of proportion to scare everyone and get ratings when x number of people die evey year from the flu anyways?

Just wondering. I might try try to some digging for statistics later today if I have a chance.
:)

During a typical year in the US, 30,000 to 50,000 people die as a result of influenza viral infection. About 5-10% of hospitalizations for influenza lead to fatal outcome in adults. Although most influenza infection is in children, the serious morbidity and mortality is almost entirely among elderly people with underlying chronic disease.

Taking this into account, the current media frenzy over this new variant of influenza would be amusing if the subject matter was not so serious.

If you are are an adult in a normal state of health and your immune system is not compromised, swine flu is NOT going to kill you.

You should say not likely to kill you. Though it is highly unlikely it could well happen (and probably has already killed some healthy adults).

Frankly this reminds me very much of the SARS panic.

I truley hope that the 'panic' is being blown out of scale by the media hyperbole.

But what might be behind all this media blitz on this... yet another... pandemic panic. Is it just to get viewers/readers? Is there an ulterior motive?

Healthcare is on the agenda.

Nah, the government would never use scare tactics to accomplish anything on its agenda :03:

Disclaimer : Please note that the above opinion does not call out either party for the use of scare tactics. Both parties are very well practiced in the use of fear to accomplish pet projects

I say it is all a direct result of the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids

The next thing that will happen is that a swine flu shot will be developed, and millions of people who don't need it will be causing mass panic by lining up for it. More people will be killed in the stampede than ever would have been killed by the swine flu. Pathetic.

Sounds like a repeat from 1976, TDK. 1 person died from swine flu that year, while ~30 died from complications with the vaccine they were distributing for it.

Sounds about right! :)

I recall a year or two ago seeing seniors as well as others lineing up for flu shots when we had an epidemic in So. Cal.

People young or old with respitory problems are at risk.

Not necessarily true. The Spanish flu was MORE lethal to young, healthy adults. There are *unconfirmed* signs that the same may be true for the current Swine Flu.

The reason the Spanish flu was like that was because the disease caused the patient's immune system to go into uncontrolled overdrive. It was sort of like an infinite loop in computer programming. If your immune system was strong enough, it could kill you. That's why healthy, young adults with strong immune systems were most at risk of dying, while older or sickly people had a better chance of surviving. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytokine_storm

There is speculation that the same trend may be true for the current flu: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/25/wo.../25mexico.html

However, all this is SPECULATION and UNCONFIRMED. I am not a medical expert, so don't take my word on this.

To answer the OP's question, about 80 to 90 children in the US die each year due to Influenza.

Found this yesterday:
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/

Kinda interesting.
:)

Uneducated panic is far more dangerous than this flu.

I am a mechanic for a aircraft charter company and I just overheard this at work today:

Some people want to charter one of our aircraft out of Mexico City because they are having a hard time getting out of Mexico and our CEO, Dir. of Safety, and Dir. of Operations are having a big discussion about safety factors, CDC restrictions on travel to/from Mexico, and if it is worth the $$$$ to fly these people home.