Dionne wrote:DESTRUCTION5 wrote:Little under 200 have died from the pig virus...and 36,000 die yearly from the basic flu..
Ill take my chances....
As of early this morning the kill ratio with this virus is 1/16. Those odds are nothing to take chances with.....
There is also the possibility that this is more than one virus.
That 6% mortality rate has been pretty consistent with each set of numbers released by Mexico. I'm not sure I trust it because I think the number of cases in Mexico has been underreported. For instance there have only been 172 laboratory confirmed cases in Mexico compared to the 2,000+ generally being reported right now. Even those 2,000+ are only the ones who were sick enough to be hospitalized and therefore reported to the authorities. Especially before the outbreak became a national emergency, most people with milder cases probably just stayed home from work and slept for about a week like a normal flu. Consider that out of 50 confirmed cases in the US, only 2 patients are currently sick enough to be hospitalized. The only reason the other 48+ were reported is because of hypervigilant testing by medical authorities here and elsewhere around the world.
The math is still subject to variability, but if you were to apply that ratio to Mexican swine flu cases as well it gives you a total of
50,000 Mexicans infected with swine flu,
2,000 of which are sick enough to requite hospitalization, and
150 dead, or a
0.03% mortality rate.
This is the best explanations I can come up with as to why none of the cases outside of Mexico seem to be very severe (yet):
- Statistically, by applying the Mexican ratio (
6% mortality) to American cases, we ought to have at least 3 deaths from swine flu in the U.S. by now, and since we don't that implies that the strain in Mexico is somehow different and more deadly than the strain that crossed the border (in multiple places and airports simultaneously, it seems)
- By applying the American statistics to the Mexican cases, the numbers suggest that 50,000 or more Mexicans may actually be infected with the swine flu or were infected over the past month, implying that the Mexican government has only been able to track down and report the most serious cases. (
0.03% mortality)
- Since the strains in the US and in Mexico have been proven to be genetically identical in laboratory testing, and since the Mexican government is understandably overwhelmed right now....I'm leaning towards the second explanation.
The truth is probably somewhere in between. I wish we had more information as far as how sick the 2,000+ suspected/confirmed flu patients in Mexico who survived actually got, because that would explain alot as to whether the Mexican numbers are underestimated compared to American/global numbers, or not.
...All that said, I'm not as concerned with this as I was about 48 hours ago. Even though the virus has been confirmed to exist and is likely spreading here in DFW right now, so far all of the cases have been in schoolchildren (not young adults as the apocalyptic pandemic would target) and they've been pretty minor cases at that. Also, if the children had transmitted the disease to their parents we should have heard about it by now....so that's also a bit confusing.
