Sharp rise in cases globally and in UK
A sharp increase in the global number of cases and deaths can been seen in the latest figures from the World Health Organisation. The total now stands at 52,160 laboratory-confirmed cases including 231 deaths in around 100 countries and territories.
Beware any attempt to derive a "death rate" from such figures (which, by my reckoning, would come out as four deaths in every 1,000 people infected). As has been repeatedly pointed out, the vast majority of cases go unrecorded, so the figure of 52,160 is a huge underestimate of the actual numbers. Work is clearly needed to get a more accurate figure for the mortality and morbidity (ill-health) associated with the virus.
England has also seen a series of big daily increases in lab-confirmed cases in recent days. There were 204 new cases confirmed by lab tests today; the total number in England has doubled in just five days, with the West Midlands accounting for half of all infections. The vast majority of those infected have experienced mild flu-like symptoms and fully recovered. There have been no deaths in England and one in Scotland.
The graphs below will show you the figures for the six countries worldwide with the biggest case-loads, in descending order: United States, Mexico, Canada, Chile, UK, Australia.
USA cases
Mexico cases
Canada cases
Chile cases
UK cases
Australia cases
I'm 
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Looks good.
Very mild virus, lacks the properties to turn deadly, has the same chance of becoming very virluent as seasonal flu, would need to go through a rediculous amount of mutations to even come close to being as virluent as the pandemics in the 50s and 60s.
Its milder than seasonal flu, it will stay milder than seasonal flu. Not much else to say really... I just feel for the poor people with health anxiety being bombarded with "worst case scenarios" and "doomsday predictions" by the mass media. Oh well...
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Skyline, I don't think the issue is the severity of the flu, it is more about the age group who are being hospitalised if they become ill.
The issue is also more about resources and how to maintain adequate staffing levels in hospitals to cope with the influx of flu victims.
The country is in an economic downturn, which means that health authorities are forced to maintain strict budget controls, which means making choices.
Hospitals need a full staff of trained, expensive workers to keep wards open, in a time when cut backs and cost cutting are necessary.
The problem is that routine investigations and operations may be put on hold until the main rush of hospital dependent flu victims have all gone home.
The problem is that the staff themselves could become ill, making it necessary to employ even more expensive agency workers.
The problem is that isolation and preventative measures need to be enforced and this can become very expensive.
Some of the flu victims are high dependency, needing specialist equipment and specialist nursing and adequate barrier nursing. The wards and equipment will then need to be thoroughly cleaned by trained cleaners.
Specialist equipment takes up space and therefore the beds have to be spaced further apart from each other in order to make room for the equipment and allow for barrier nursing.
It could be you who needs a routine investigation and surgery, which will now be either rushed forward or put on hold until the flu numbers subside.
So we are not talking about doomsday or worse case scenarios, just economic realities and that is why I asked if the health service requires volunteers to help with some of the basic tasks.
I agree that some people may have health anxieties but they may be for a good reason if they fall into one of the categories that may need extra attention. Again, I think we are talking about volume not severity.
I have been in the business and it is hard work at the best of times.
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Good comments, and I genuinely believe it's good to have one's awareness raised. However, when we begin to hear about people who fulfil the criteria for Tamiflu (according to the NHS site), yet have not received it, I become very concerned.
I have an autoimmune condition and my immune system doesn't cope well with viruses such as Norovirus, Chicken Pox and seasonal flu. My daughter has a similar problem with her immune system. We are both well aware of the distiction between flu and a cold. Our family concern is that we live in a rural area with adequate medical care being dependent on which GP you see at the time. If the teacher in the west midlands who has Lupus didn't get Tamiflu, in spite of being in a high risk area, working in an infected school and likely to communicate this to many others, how much truth IS there in the guidance being issued by the government and the NHS?
I certainly wouldn't go to my nearest hospital-they diagnosed a brain haemorrhage as a migraine, and that was after a CT scan!
In my county there are now 25 cases apparently-a drop in the ocean compared to other areas. 10 at my daughter's Uni, the rest unspecified apart from being 'West' or 'East'.
I like to remain informed, but it's somewhat difficult when the info is vague! I even tried calling my GP today to ask what their procedure would be if I called with flu symptoms. I was just told that unless I had difficulty breathing or had recently returned from a country with Swine flu (!!!!!) then fluids and paracetamol were all they advise!
Surely all medical practioners should be following the NHS management recommendations?!
It seems that quality of care depends on where you live and how informed and conscientious your doctor is!
The usual NHS lottery then?!
A decent UK map of the outbreak would be good-most of the sites I look at haven't even registered the passing of that poor lady in Scotland. Any chance of that Fergie instead As well as the lovely Spreadsheet graphs?
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Skyline, influenza mutates and reassorts very rapidly and it is happening as we speak, eg http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=110932
More worrying is the reported cause of death (where it is being reported!) such as multiple organ failure. This is just not a feature of seasonal flu.
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I just give up.
Ive explained a thousand times about this and about the risks of mutations. And ive given sources, ive given links, ive given facts. You feel free to post scaremongering rubbish thats going to terrify everyone here with health anxiety, il keep reading the facts. Do you have any idea what your even reading in that link? Do you understand anything about the influenza virus or are you just speculating? Thought so.
Honestly, since most people here have seen me explain a thousand times, im giving up. Have fun worrying about .... seasonal flu. Speak to you next year when your sitting there wondering "oh yeah... i was a bit wrong about that topic i had no actual knowleged on whatsoever."
Sorry but the link you posted to is laughable. Its dealing with completley different influenza strains, and they have as much chance of affecting the "swine flu" variant as they do seasonal. Influenza can be pretty dangerous, but the current pandemic strain, is less virluent and as likely to become a "superflu" as seasonal flu is. Please stop posting links without backing them up with actual facts behind it. Your link was absolutely irrelevant to this, and is going to cause nothing but concern in people who dont understand what they are reading there, and no offence but im guessing your one of those things. Get off google and get outside. Swine flu isnt killing you.
Done.
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If you look at the world health map it shows how illnesses develop and spread around the world. One can infer from the data, that some individuals are not taking personal responsibility. I was irritated by the fact that someone, who should know better, could travel through a country for five days, knowing that he possibly had swine flu. To travel through a country, on a packed train, with a disease which that country is trying hard to contain, is totally selfish and irresponsible. It appears that disease is more often passed from country to country, not by the poor but those who can make choices.
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It's interesting that all the graphs show a roughly exponential rise except for Mexico, where the graph is approaching a plateau...
But still, a death rate of ~0.443% is pretty small - and it would be even less if you include the thousands of people alluded to who haven't had a sample taken for 'official' diagnosis (probably because they realise the virus is relatively mild, so have left their body's immune system to fight it instead of risking spreading it to others by asking their GP for a dose of Tamiflu / Relenza)
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Skyline, I am no virologist (that is why I posted the link to a blog which virologists use to exchange information) however I do know that your assertion that H1N1 would need a "ridiculous amount of mutations" in order to become as virulent as previous pandemics is nonsense.
I believe that preparedness can do much to ameliorate difficult situations. That is why WHO, the DH and the MRC have been pumping money into research in this field for some years. Some of these trials I have been involved with professionally so I'm not speculating any more than my job requires. I was prompted to post because I was appalled by your ostrich-like attitude. Too many people are telling each other that H1N1 is a non-event just like SARS, bird flu, global warming, etc etc, and that it is being hyped by the media in order to sell papers and by the government for some weird experiment in social control. To lull people into a false sense of seurity based on the fact that we live in a well-nourished nation with advanced medicine and that they therefore do not need to take personal responsibility for their own well-being is positively dangerous.
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I have not placed anywhere in my posts that people shouldnt take responsibility for their own well being. What you posted is detrimental. The information inside there is complex, do you even understand it yourself il ask you again. I refuse to sit here and discuss the absolute worst case scenarios with people. Its not necessary. again my key points...
1. same as seasonal.
2. same risk of mutation.
3. would need at least 4 major mutations to become anything even remotely severe. This is a gigantic amount in virology.
Ostritch like attitude? As opposed to headless chicken am i right?
You have no idea what you are talking about evidently and trawling sites like what you linked to would be completley pointless for the people commenting.
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1. The case reports for the severe cases and the deaths are /not/ the same as seasonal flu. As the WHO point out "around one third to half of the severe and fatal infections are occurring in previously healthy young and middle-aged people." You will also note that they have ceased to define H1N1 as "mild" but have instead designated it of "moderate" severity.
2. Yes, the mutation rate will probably be the same as seasonal flu - ie, "superfast" in comparison with other viruses: http://www.brighthub.com/science/genetics/articles/34574.aspx. However the transmissibility is much greater, hence a global pandemic, as opposed to an epidemic or an outbreak. The greater the number of infected people, the greater the chances of recombination. It may mutate into a form which is no longer a risk to humans, or it may not.
3. See 2.
I couldn't disagree more with your assertion that it is not necessary to discuss worst case scenarios. If estimates that 40% of the population may be absent from work at any one time prove correct, it would be idiotic to imagine that services will carry on as usual. This is not headless chicken syndrome but sensible planning. To suggest that the general public should be shielded from such models smacks of elitism of the worst kind. Contingency plans need to be put in place across the board, using the ethos "prepare for the worst and hope for the best".
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Well at least its not the Black Plague
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No map yet I see!
It can't be that hard-BBC news already has a map showing locations of oil worker unrest.
Help us out Fergie!
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10. At 8:42pm on 23 Jun 2009, MidnightStoker: Nil Desperandum! wrote:
"Contingency plans need to be put in place across the board"
What makes you think there aren't contingency plans in place? You surely would not expect specific contingency arrangements to be made public in advance of a definite 'need to know' would you?
That would only result in information overload and unnecessary heightening of panic.
Civil contigency planning for events such as major terrorist attacks, nuclear contamination, flu pandemics, and many many more incidents and events have been in place for many years and are constantly updated and revised by local, regional and national government, police forces, MOD, Health Trusts and a myriad of others.
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Bravo on the graphs! A huge improvement :)
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Skyline, Hi. I am new to this blog but have been reading your posts with great interest. I too became worried with the haedlines comparing the SF to the 1918 Pandemic. I read that half of the people who died in Mexico were healthy, and that some died from hyper immune response. Although this could be attributed to the high levels of arsenic in the drinking water, I just wondered what you made of the death rate in healthy people. Also, I have read with great interest the notion that most of the illness from 1918 was caused due to the vaccinations that the soldiers received a mixed cocktail of before going to war.Civillians were also vaccinated when the soldiers came home sick. There are reports from those days of infantile paralysis in soldiers, something that is linked to vaccine poison. Also, the way the soldiers symptoms were treated, were likely to have killed them more than the diseases alone.
What do you make of the point that it was the drug makers that killed all those people back then?
Do you think that the new vaccine will be safe? Given that in 1976 it caused deaths and paralysis.
I am v confused. I do not know if I want my two daughters to have the vaccine. I am also confused by the comparisons to 1918 in the media. Some say that it was purely bird flu in 1918, some say swine. Swine is H1n1, but Avian Flu H5N1. This is H1N1. So was the 1918 caused by swine or bird or all three?
Do you think that given the economic climate, this is a very quick way for people to make some money? I spoke to an old friend the other day who told me a few moths ago he may be losing his job. Yet a few days ago, he was chipper, business was great, lots of sales. He sells machines that make packaging for pharmaceutical companies. Also, it wouldnt do the shares any harm either. (?)
Sorry if i am clueless. I appreciate your posts, your statistics put my mind at ease. ThanksX
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