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D'Eyncourt wrote:

JakeTheTall wrote:

D'Eyncourt wrote:

You realize that with the seasonal flu you have a 99.988% chance of surviving in the US (about 36,000 deaths per year over the 300 million population), although your chances are more like 99.9988% if you are under 60 years in age (90% of deaths from seasonal flu are among those 60 or older).

So go ahead and sniff at that 0.2% death rate (a projected 600,000 deaths over the US population).

You're assuming 100% of the population catches both ?  This feels like slashdot math.

No, not everyone in the US catches the seasonal flu, so the chances for death among those who did so would be much higher but obviously much harder to track since most seasonal flu cases are not formally reported. Farmerkev has been tossing in this 99.8% number as if it were a small thing.

It is.
Math is math and that mortality rate is for those that catch H1N1.

D'Eyncourt wrote:

Farmerkev wrote:

D'Eyncourt wrote:

No, not everyone in the US catches the seasonal flu, so the chances for death among those who did so would be much higher but obviously much harder to track since most seasonal flu cases are not formally reported. Farmerkev has been tossing in this 99.8% number as if it were a small thing.

It is.
Math is math and that mortality rate is for those that catch H1N1.

Where did you get that number?

It's been the widely reported number in all the media but our own good doctor used it as well.
http://www.maclife.com/forums/post.php? … id=1688595

sturner wrote:

I don't see it as any different than mandatory vaccinations in the military.

hmmm. Maybe it's precisely because we aren't in the military that we grasp at our ever decreasing freedom to choose for ourselves?

I don't see how this can possible be upheld in a court of law.

btw - it does seem odd that they would use shortage as excuse to rescind the mandatory shots.

If there is a vaccine shortage, you need your public health workers to be healthy both to deal with the high number of sick people and to prevent them from being vectors to an un-vaccinated public.

I never understand the logic of administrators.

Farmerkev wrote:

D'Eyncourt wrote:

Farmerkev wrote:

It is.
Math is math and that mortality rate is for those that catch H1N1.

Where did you get that number?

It's been the widely reported number in all the media but our own good doctor used it as well.
http://www.maclife.com/forums/post.php? … id=1688595

It seems like an awfully suspicious number, especially "for those that catch H1N1"--how exactly would you figure that out especially considering that H1N1's symptoms are pretty much the same as any other flu.

So, DevoDoc--explain, please?

The 0.2% case fatality rate was a CDC estimate based on data from the initial outbreak, when individual cases were being tracked more closely.

Two deaths have been reported in the United States, resulting in a preliminary case-fatality rate of 0.2% among patients with laboratory-confirmed disease. However, such case-fatality rates should be viewed with caution. The actual case-fatality rate is difficult to ascertain in a rapidly evolving outbreak because an unknown proportion of currently infected patients might die, denominators might be uncertain because of unreported cases, and groups at high risk for death from seasonal influenza (e.g., older adults and patients with chronic disease) might not yet have been exposed to the novel influenza A (H1N1) virus.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5817a1.htm

Recent estimates have been higher, some north of a 0.5% case fatality rate, but it's pretty difficult to know what the denominator is in a widespread outbreak. Interesting discussion here:

Nevertheless, by using numbers from the CDC, the H1N1 case-fatality ratio can be estimated according to the authors' equation. There were 43,771 confirmed or probable cases of novel H1N1 infection in the United States from April 15 to July 24,** resulting in 5011 hospitalizations. Therefore the hospitalization ratio for this time period was 0.114. As of August 20, there have been 522 deaths among 7982 hospitalizations, for an in-hospital death ratio of 0.065. The case-fatality ratio in the United States is therefore 0.114 X 0.065, or 0.0075 (and the mortality rate is 0.75%).

http://bmartinmd.com/2009/08/h1n1-morta … falls.html

Although they incorrectly use the terms "case fatality rate" and "mortality rate" interchangeably. A 0.75% mortality rate would mean that ¾% of the entire population was dying, which clearly isn't the case.

I received the intranasal H1N1 vaccine today. So far so good.

I had H1N1 flu last week and it was just LOADS of fun.  My fever got so bad I had hallucinations.

bedstuy wrote:

My fever got so bad I had hallucinations.

Any good ones?

sturner wrote:

has your nose started to mutate yet?

pixplsthx!

That sounds like a different oinkment to me.

DevoDoc wrote:

sturner wrote:

has your nose started to mutate yet?

pixplsthx!

I can't move my legs at all below the knee, but I don't really needs my feet for work so I'm OK.

Wait till you find out you're impotent or not and then get back to us

Which added to the hallucinatory shock!

[MA] Flying_Meat wrote:

Pariah wrote:

I want to go on record as being against mandatory vaccination. They can just make the unvaccinated to wear a mask on duty.

Brand them!!!!
A big burned in "U" on their foreheads should do it! They can claim it means unrepentant, unimpressed, undecided,.. whatever.

I'm also against mandatory vaccination against a flu that is not markedly more devastating than regularly expected seasonal flu. Make the shots available for those that will (seemingly an impossible task) and move on.

It appears to be the newly effective political meme. FEAR! You can get re/elected on it!
[bold added]

Here is a chart showing the identified cases of influenza in the US over the past year. Note that there have been more cases of H1N1 during this period when influenza cases are normally almost non-existent than there was for the seasonal flu (which is shown by the first bump on the curve).

Here is an update since the publication of the above chart. Please note the change in scale between the above chart and the latter one.

Last edited by D'Eyncourt (2009-11-03 12:45 pm)