Swine flu could infect half of U.S., panel estimates

[Amberglass]

Swine flu could infect half of U.S., panel estimates

By Rob Stein
Washington Post
Posted: 08/24/2009 05:19:40 PM PDT
Updated: 08/24/2009 09:15:54 PM PDT

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Special swine flu section
Health
Swine flu could infect half the U.S. population this fall and winter, hospitalizing up to 1.8 million people and causing as many as 90,000 deaths — more than double the number that occur in an average flu season, according to an estimate from a presidential panel released Monday.
The virus could cause symptoms in 60 million to 120 million people, more than half of whom might seek medical attention, the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology estimated in an 86-page report to the White House assessing the government's response to the first influenza pandemic in 41 years.
Although most of the cases probably would be mild, up to 300,000 people could require intensive care, which could tie up all those beds in some parts of the country at the peak of the outbreak, the council said.
"This is going to be fairly serious," said Harold Varmus of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, who co-chairs the 21-member council. "It's going to stress every aspect of our health system."
The estimates mark the first time experts have released specific calculations about the possible impact of the pandemic in the United States. The "plausible scenario" is based on previous pandemics, especially the 1957-58 Asian flu, and how the swine flu behaved in the United States this spring and during the Southern Hemisphere's winter over the past few months, said Mark Lipsitch of the Harvard School of Public Health, who
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helped prepare the estimate.
"They are not a prediction, but they are a possibility," he said in a telephone interview, noting that the estimates are based on various assumptions, including that the virus will not mutate into a more dangerous form or infect more older people.
While the seasonal flu causes about 36,000 deaths and 200,000 hospitalizations each year, the lack of immunity to the swine flu virus probably will lead to many more people becoming infected and possibly dying — as many as 90,000, the council said.
And while most deaths during a typical flu season occur in the elderly, swine flu is more likely to kill children and young adults, the panel said.
The primary purpose of the estimates was to help guide planning to protect the public.
For example, it was estimated that the outbreak could peak in mid-October, so the panel urged expediting the availability of a vaccine.
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/...195?source=rss

[caonacl]

Do the numbers....If H1N1 mortality rate averages 1%; and assuming a US population of 300 million, then we can have as much as 3,000,000 (3 million US fatalities).

...Seasonal flu has a death rate of less than 0.1 percent -- but still manages to kill 250,000 to 500,000 people globally every year.

A category 5 pandemic would compare to the 1918 flu pandemic, which had an estimated death rate of 2 percent or more, and would kill tens of million of people.

An estimate published in the journal Eurosurveillance last month by the French Institute for Public Health Surveillance put the mortality rate far higher, at 0.4 percent for all age groups.

HIGHER MORTALITY?

Lipsitch took information from around the world on how many people had reported they had influenza-like illness, which may or may not actually be influenza; government reports of actual hospitalizations and confirmed deaths.

He came up with a range of mortality from swine flu ranging from 0.007 percent to 0.045 percent.

Either way, having new information about how many people were infected and did not become severely ill or die makes the pandemic look very mild, he said....

http://www.reuters.com/article/healt...58E6NZ20090917

[caonacl]

[Kassy]

Originally Posted by caonacl

Do the numbers....If H1N1 mortality rate averages 1%; and assuming a US population of 300 million, then we can have as much as 3,000,000 (3 million US fatalities).

But only if you assume a 100% attack rate / everybody gets infected which never happens.

[caonacl]

Originally Posted by Kassy

But only if you assume a 100% attack rate / everybody gets infected which never happens.

Good point, so maybe we will only have 1.5 Million US fatalities

[Pablo Escobar]

Unless the flu mutates, and it hasn't yet, we will see only .006% to .0006% deaths, or about 1160 to 11,600.

My best scientific wild ass guess is at 3- 6 K.

There is absolutely zero, zero, zero data that implies any higher death rate, aka CFR, and much much much data that implies the lower bound.

Of course, with a mutation, all bets are off.

This wave, at least, we're good. And we are still dealing with first wave strain. Will their be a second wave strain? The science is still not clear on that.

So far, I've been right since March, about the progress of this strain.

We have NOT seen any of Pablo's SODs (tm) that have played out.

from my JUne 23rd post at fluwiki

http://www.newfluwiki2.com/diary/349...death-syndrome

I have maintained since April that we are in the midst of a mild, low to ultra low CFR pandemic. Indeed, I have calculated that we are in the midst of .006% to .0006% CFR based upon the early CARs of 40-60%, that we saw in the school outbreaks.

I have also maintained the position, that Mexiflu can mutate and have been watching for what I call the Symptoms of Doom (SOD).

SOD I - Any symptom that would suggest that influenza has begun to attack cells within the lymphatic or circulatory system. Reports of buboles, skin eruptions, skin turning black, bleeding from orifices...

So far, so good. Unlike H5N1, we haven't seen reports with these words in them yet.

SOD II - Clusters of death - Clusters of death are probably the scariest, and Mr. Niman's made up "cluster" not withstanding, need to be tracked the closest. Regardless of the mechanism of death, clusterization of deaths mean that the virus has become more lethal, while maintaining it's transmissability.

SOD III - Sudden Death (from first symptom to death within 48 hours). This symptom means that the virus has changed to a form that kills in a way that almost prevents treatment, as well as is the scariest for the public, as this will cause the most panic among parents and cause a massive tidal wave of the worried well.

While we have seen sudden death syndrome, it is sporadic and widespread. Only two cases of two person clusters of death have appeared in the MSM. The ohio siblings, and a recent case in Florida of siblings. And we haven't seen any 1918 death symptoms reported.