Swine Flu outbreak

skeptigirl said:
Or a whistle blower pointing out the real reason for a government action. Depends on who "they" are here.
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Well both "excuses" are cited by official Egyptian government channels, so presumably whistleblowing isn't the issue.
 
The Atheist said:
You know, I never find that.
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I learn a lot and enjoy searching out the science on the web. But that doesn't mean I'm going to search out an answer for every troll like poster who asks, "but why?" for the tenth or twentieth time.

;)
Why do people get annoyed when little children ask lots of questions?

Answer

Because children tend to ask questions over and over. and over and over. And then when you answer the question, most of them ask 'why?'. and then when you answer that, they ask 'but why?'. let me explain. "Why" is what i call a 'loop question', because once you say why they can still ask why. which is confusing, but very true. long story short, little kids with questions are annoying.
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Must I Always Answer My Childs “WHY” Questions?
Serious questions do merit discussion or a thoughtful explanation. But most kids’ “why” questions are designed simply to engage you — and rarely in a positive way.
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When you recognize a BS question, there is no reason to just keep repeating the answer you clearly already gave.
 
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gumboot said:
Well both "excuses" are cited by official Egyptian government channels, so presumably whistleblowing isn't the issue.
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Time may sort that one out.

In the meantime, in support of my position in our earlier discussion regarding the correlation of the confirmed case count to the actual case count: King County update
The new influenza A H1N1 is circulating in the community, but since most infections are relatively mild, fewer tests are being conducted to determine if an ill person is infected with the H1N1 virus. Laboratories are focusing limited testing resources on people with more severe symptoms.
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In addition, they've finally confirmed 7 cases in King County despite the fact those specimens were sent to the CDC over 5 days ago, and 30 more specimens have yet to be tested. None of the samples were tested until today because of CDC's backlog. All 37 specimens have tested positive for H1N1 and were untypeable with the state tests which can confirm non-swine H1N1. In other words, probable cases have actually been tested and test positive. It's unlikely any untypeable results will be something other than the swine flu strain. For the US, probable cases are relatively the same as confirmed cases. Other country testing procedures may differ. All the specimens here are going through public health labs which are following the same test procedures.
 
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skeptigirl said:
In the meantime, in support of my position in our earlier discussion regarding the correlation of the confirmed case count to the actual case count: King County update
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I must confess I have no idea what the above is meant to be in reference to...?

Also, thank you for your patience and your responses in our earlier discussion. I didn't respond as I was away for the weekend, but your input was appreciated. :)
 
skeptigirl said:
I had already posted the supporting evidence. Your lecture on this matter falls in the d'uh category but it wasn't relevant to my reply to WC.
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If you've already posted evidence then that is what you should've said, in my opinion. You made it sound like it was for another reason.
 
gumboot said:
I must confess I have no idea what the above is meant to be in reference to...?
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Our discussion on confirmed cases vs actual cases started around this post. I had a similar debate with WildCat and others that the confirmed case count was not intended to stand for the actual case count. You responded:
But it's a basic statistical mistake to use the data from suspected infections to determine the nature of the problem.
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My point was there are other valid indicators of the extent of an epidemic and while confirmed cases is one of those indicators, there are many situations when epidemiologists successfully use other indicators to determine the extent of an epidemic.

gumboot said:
Also, thank you for your patience and your responses in our earlier discussion. I didn't respond as I was away for the weekend, but your input was appreciated. :)
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Likewise.
 
skeptigirl said:
Our discussion on confirmed cases vs actual cases started around this post. I had a similar debate with WildCat and others that the confirmed case count was not intended to stand for the actual case count. You responded:

My point was there are other valid indicators of the extent of an epidemic and while confirmed cases is one of those indicators, there are many situations when epidemiologists successfully use other indicators to determine the extent of an epidemic.
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Ah, I see. I thought I pointed out that I wasn't debating numbers - I agree with you that confirmed cases represent only a fraction of total cases (I think that's pretty obvious).

On a side note, the quote you offered confirmed what I had suspected, which is that confirmed cases represented only the more severe cases, and those uncounted cases would in all probability be much less severe.
 
gumboot said:
Ah, I see. I thought I pointed out that I wasn't debating numbers - I agree with you that confirmed cases represent only a fraction of total cases (I think that's pretty obvious).

On a side note, the quote you offered confirmed what I had suspected, which is that confirmed cases represented only the more severe cases, and those uncounted cases would in all probability be much less severe.
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I think it was clear by ~May 1st or 2nd, the falsely low denominator was likely the reason the death rate in Mexico appeared as it did.

What's unfortunate is that much of the public (and more than a few people posting about it) doesn't understand the public health reaction to this epidemic has been correct. Of all the potential infectious disease hazards, flu carries the biggest risk for mass casualties with the exception of something we've never seen before like SARS.

There was no way to assess this virus until we saw what it was going to do. And you don't just ignore it until then.
 
The news reported some unhealthy person in the US died from this new flu strain. You picture something different from a pregnant 33 year old. Very sad. They saved her baby by C-section after she went into a coma.

Relatives grieve for Texas woman with flu who died

Pregnancy puts women at risk of dying from flu. Their death rate is on par with people over 65 in terms of numbers. While the official report is this person had some kind of 'respiratory problems', I wonder how much the pregnancy itself contributed?
 
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skeptigirl said:
Pregnancy puts women at risk of dying from flu. Their death rate is on par with people over 65 in terms of numbers. While the official report is this person had some kind of 'respiratory problems', I wonder how much the pregnancy itself contributed?
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Might want to call her an 'outlier' and wish her well.

Note where Cameron County is. http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q...CPBw&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1

FWIW: last week, local school district closed up shop. For two weeks, they said.

Hmm.

This morning, they will re open after a week closed. Seems the latest assessment down here, south of I-10, is "it's not as lethal as we suspected." A few folks are still asking "Wwhat about the second wave" with concerned looks on their faces.

We shall see.

DR
 
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Darth Rotor said:
Might want to call her an 'outlier' and wish her well.

Note where Cameron County is. http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q...CPBw&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1

FWIW: last week, local school district closed up shop. For two weeks, they said.

Hmm.

This morning, they will re open after a week closed. Seems the latest assessment down here, south of I-10, is "it's not as lethal as we suspected." A few folks are still asking "Wwhat about the second wave" with concerned looks on their faces.

We shall see.

DR
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I thought we got past this part of the debate. Perhaps you are late to the discussion.

You cannot draw conclusions beyond the evidence you have, much as people are tempted to. We have a grossly inadequate sample at this point to say anything about the demographics we are going to see in the deaths. We won't see what the US death pattern is going to be until there are tens of thousands of infections in the US.

We do now have a large enough sample to draw two conclusions at this point. The death rate is not going to look like 1918 (future virus genetic drift still unknown), and, contagiousness is quite high.

If the pattern of contagiousness continues and does not slow down significantly as the season changes, we could easily see half the population infected. That could translate into 20,000 deaths on the low end and 50,000 on the high end. If the contagiousness does slow down, it's likely we'll see the same accumulation of total deaths but not until next winter. The unknown factor is going to be how many people over 50 have some immunity if that very early evidence turns out to be confirmed. Even if there is some immunity in the older population, that will skew the age range of total deaths toward the younger end. But seasonal flu infects a population with some immunity every year and the US deaths averaged 36,000/year over the last decade.


Shouldn't we see those deaths by now? The answer is no. You are thinking too small. The bucket is still barely dripping as it's being turned over. In the next couple weeks you can expect the cases to pour out of that bucket. If not in the Northern hemisphere, it will in the Southern.


There was a conference 2 days ago here at the U of WA. I didn't go but they played it on the tele today. Public health officials reported there are hundreds of cases in the county that are not being counted in the official numbers and in addition, there is such a backlog of tests at the CDC, the numbers you are seeing on the news are a week old but the time they are reported.
 
skeptigirl said:
You are thinking too small. The bucket is still barely dripping as it's being turned over. In the next couple weeks you can expect the cases to pour out of that bucket. If not in the Northern hemisphere, it will in the Southern.
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Mexico is reporting infection has peaked, and is now dwindling. This seems to suggest the worst of it is already over.
 
gumboot said:
Mexico is reporting infection has peaked, and is now dwindling. This seems to suggest the worst of it is already over.
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I saw that, and it doesn't compute.

You shut the country down for a week, new infections will dry up.

Only to fire up again as soon as everyone gets back into contact.
 
skeptigirl said:
Shouldn't we see those deaths by now? The answer is no. You are thinking too small. The bucket is still barely dripping as it's being turned over. In the next couple weeks you can expect the cases to pour out of that bucket. If not in the Northern hemisphere, it will in the Southern.
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Yeah! Just you wait and see!

Pointy.gif
 
GreNME said:
Yeah! Just you wait and see!

[qimg]http://image.grenme.com/thread/Pointy.gif[/qimg]
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I'll just bookmark this post for later reference. :)

Let's see we are likely at about a couple thousand cases in the US so far. The expected deaths are about 1 per 4,000 infections. That's about average for flu. The cases will be rising exponentially since you can figure each person infecting on average 2-3 more. .....
 
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