On April 23rd of this year, the first death attributed to the H1N1 virus was confirmed after flu-like symptoms began showing up in the population of Veracruz, Mexico, who happen to live near the Smithfield Foods pig farm there. Testing later showed that the herd was clean, but the so-called swine-flu virus continued to spread through the local human population. Containment was not an option once the virus went international.
I choose to think it is just cases being underreported. I mean, I have had the flu a few times and I have never bothered a doctor about it. I can only think of a couple of people that have, as a matter of fact. In addition, when you think about all the people that will catch this and not report it because of lack of insurance, can’t afford to take time off from work, or the fact they live someplace where there simply are no hospitals, it seems like the morbidity rate I calculate is at least an order of magnitude too high.
But if you do take the 0.4% number and assume that 3.5 billion people - half the globe - eventually become infected over the next few years (spreading at a rate akin to the 1918 outbreak) then that means that, over the next couple of years, 14 million worldwide will die from this disease - 61,000 in the USA. It is a remarkable coincidence that my “back of the envelope” 61,000 number falls smack in the middle of the Obama administration’s range as put out in their badly worded press release.
But comparing the number of people killed during the 1918 pandemic to the population of the world at that time, and doing the same thing with the current global population for even my probably-way-too-high-estimate, it seems that the current outbreak is at least an order of magnitude less worrisome than the one from nearly a century ago.
So why the panic? Why the incessant “1918” comparisons on the news? If this is so much less serious than regular flu, why the rush for inoculations? Why is Elmo helping children in the Fight Against H1N1? If the situation is so out of control, why don’t the infection and death graphs follow a severe and worrying exponential curve, rather than the tamer path actually seen? Why does WolframAlpha show a mortality rate of near 1% when a recent article stated that "800,000 have been infected in NYC alone", but with only 54 deaths, this makes the real rate a hundred times lower, doesn't it? Why do many reliable sources (look them up) say that this will be no worse than any other flu season? If that is the case, why is this so darn newsworthy?
With all of the data out there pointing in different directions I really don’t know. I have a couple of theories, though neither fit the observed facts. One is an equal mix of “unlikely” and “crazy”. The other is just “full-on tinfoil-hat crazy”. I am not going to post them, though, because I am interested in what you think and I don’t want to tilt the discussion in any direction.
So tell me what you think, because I am at a loss. Should we worry? Is everything OK? What data am I missing? What’s the real deal here?
For several months the media went absolutely bonkers about this pandemic and you could not turn on the TV without seeing reports of sickness and death throughout the world from this "new" killer disease.
High profile cases reported on the quarantining foreign travellers in China and group of tourists from India after they were sickened while on a field trip to a NASA in the US.
Articles describing predicted vaccine shortfalls, rationing, and National Guard “distribution assistance” began to appear in the mainstream media. WHO declared the H1N1 outbreak a Level 6 pandemic, and then stopped counting infections and instructed hospitals it was no longer necessary to test for H1N1 because of the cost and time involved in doing so. The ECDC stopped publishing infections and began reporting only on deaths starting August 11th.
The Obama administration recently published a report that 30,000 to 90,000 people could die from this illness in the US alone by the time it ran its course. As of today, 2,992 people have died worldwide, and there is a bill in the Massachusetts legislature that could allow swine-flu related warrantless detainments of private citizens.
There. I’ve cherry-picked the last several months of swine flu news to make it sound like we are all doomed. Are we?
Based on curve-fitting (I started compiling data about two weeks into the crisis) of periodically published data from the WHO and ECDC, the one millionth serious infection should have taken place sometime during the middle of this month. Hey, I know this uses a lot of assumptions that make my effort only slightly better than a wild guess. For example, if you plot morbidity rate, you see that it starts high and gradually drops to below 0.5% (the fatality rate of “run-of-the-mill” flu and pneumonia), levels out somewhere around 0.4%, and climbs back up to near 1% (at this point the ECDC stopped publishing infection counts). Does this mean that the virus a) is less lethal than regular flu and only looks worse because of underreporting or b) the virus has mutated into a deadlier form (like the 1918 influenza pandemic) .
I choose to think it is just cases being underreported. I mean, I have had the flu a few times and I have never bothered a doctor about it. I can only think of a couple of people that have, as a matter of fact. In addition, when you think about all the people that will catch this and not report it because of lack of insurance, can’t afford to take time off from work, or the fact they live someplace where there simply are no hospitals, it seems like the morbidity rate I calculate is at least an order of magnitude too high.
But if you do take the 0.4% number and assume that 3.5 billion people - half the globe - eventually become infected over the next few years (spreading at a rate akin to the 1918 outbreak) then that means that, over the next couple of years, 14 million worldwide will die from this disease - 61,000 in the USA. It is a remarkable coincidence that my “back of the envelope” 61,000 number falls smack in the middle of the Obama administration’s range as put out in their badly worded press release.
But comparing the number of people killed during the 1918 pandemic to the population of the world at that time, and doing the same thing with the current global population for even my probably-way-too-high-estimate, it seems that the current outbreak is at least an order of magnitude less worrisome than the one from nearly a century ago.
So why the panic? Why the incessant “1918” comparisons on the news? If this is so much less serious than regular flu, why the rush for inoculations? Why is Elmo helping children in the Fight Against H1N1? If the situation is so out of control, why don’t the infection and death graphs follow a severe and worrying exponential curve, rather than the tamer path actually seen? Why does WolframAlpha show a mortality rate of near 1% when a recent article stated that "800,000 have been infected in NYC alone", but with only 54 deaths, this makes the real rate a hundred times lower, doesn't it? Why do many reliable sources (look them up) say that this will be no worse than any other flu season? If that is the case, why is this so darn newsworthy?
With all of the data out there pointing in different directions I really don’t know. I have a couple of theories, though neither fit the observed facts. One is an equal mix of “unlikely” and “crazy”. The other is just “full-on tinfoil-hat crazy”. I am not going to post them, though, because I am interested in what you think and I don’t want to tilt the discussion in any direction.
So tell me what you think, because I am at a loss. Should we worry? Is everything OK? What data am I missing? What’s the real deal here?
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5 comments:
I have several thoughts about "swine flu" or "H1N1" as everyone keeps calling it. First, I think folks like to call it H1N1 because it sounds official, clinical and even a little scary. It would be much more scary (to me at least) if it were accurate. Calling the swine flu H1N1 is a little like describing to a police officer the car that hit you as having four wheels and an engine and at least two doors. H1N1 is the most common family of influenza virus that impacts human beings "Influenza A". A quick stop by wikipedia will tell you that H1N1 is the family of influenza viruses that hits humans EVERY SINGLE YEAR. The 1918 virus was H1N1, so was "bird flu" a few years back. There are other families of influenza, such as Influenza B, which impacts humans and seals and mutates at a rate 2 to 3 times slower than Influenza A, but let's not belabor the point.
My second thought on the issue is that the "pandemic" of swine flu is to the press (and publicly funded organizations such as the World Health Organization) what they hoped "bird flu" would be, and before that "SARS" - that is, a rapidly spreading virus that grabs people's attention and can be used to cause panic.
So, why would anyone want panic? Let's rephrase the question... So, why would commercial television, newspapers, magazines and radio stations, not to mention publicly funded "health" organizations want to cause panic? Well the answers should be pretty darn obvious. The answer is, in both cases, money. I know, I was shocked too! "Keep watching our channels, reading our newspapers and magazines and listening to our radio stations." "Please keep funding our very important health organization or even increase our funding!"
My third observation is, people have a limited attention span for "news", if you keep paying attention to something horrendously over inflated but ultimately harmless or even made-up (stellar impacts, pandemics, global warming) you'll have less time or interest in paying attention to details about real issues, taxation, the economy, the truth about "the health care crisis" or lack thereof.
The news folks have figured out a few new "truths" in the last several decades, led by The National Enquirer, The New York Times and other nut-job periodicals.
#1 What you report as news doesn't have to be true or even believable.
#2 By the time anyone manages to get enough public momentum to question your "news stories" in the public forum, you can claim it's "old news" and "not worth talking about" or a "politically motivated distraction". Lacking that, you can even say, "Of course it's true, 'cause most scientists agree it's true. Just don't ask how many, which ones, or why."
#3 You can pass of obvious opinion as news without any disclaimer or justification at all as long as it vilifies the Right people.
#4 You can inject purely emotional and subjective statements into "news" without ever having to admit or explain bias.
#5 You can use (and bend) political correctness to smash all dissent, even when contradicting your own positions held just months or even days ago.
#6 You can apply blatant, even laughable stereotypes as long as they're applied to, again, the Right people.
So let's not pretend to be shocked when news people warn there's a killer pandemic out there just waiting to sweep away our darling children leaving a trail of gory death! Mwwwuuuhhaaahahahahaa! Now don't change that dial. ;)
@Agmorion:
To sum up, your view is that the main goal of the hype surrounding this "story" is to make cash for the various news agencies and the WHO?
I agree 95%. I would agree 100%, except quite a bit of cash and infrastucture has been devoted into creating and distributing vaccinations for this effort, so this doesn't seem to be a purely "panic the masses so we can sell more Coca-Cola" thing (to me). Where is the profit if so much is spent on the effort? Is it merely a case of the media wanting to sell more soap, but not knowing when to put on the brakes of the spin machine?
SnowUrchin:
I believe your question is: If the hype-crazed media is simply doing this to keep eye-balls on their advertiser-paid-for channels, then why would there be such an expenditure of cash to make and distribute a vaccine? If I read this right the answer is pretty straightforward. If the media were the ones spending money to make and distribute a vaccine, it would be far more disturbing but your question would make quite a bit more sense.
But let's consider it from another perspective. Who's attending to the vaccine?
Let's suppose any self-interested politician were to look at this situation objectively. He/she may or may not know that the whole thing amounts to nothing more than panic mongering for profit at the expense of credibility the news outlets lost years ago. But it doesn't matter. Whether he/she appreciates the made-up crisis or not, he/she would have to be enormously honorable, persuasive and self-defeating to try to put out the fire in the minds of the public. Since we haven't seen such a politician in living memory, and since there is much more to be gained by being the hero of a non-existent crisis..."Let's make a vaccine, my friends."
I submit that spending money you didn't earn to address a problem that doesn't exist to become a hero with no possible downside (since the media can only go out of their way to back you up) is the obvious choice of political winners. Remember who was caught on the record saying, "We should never let a good crisis go to waste."
You'll note that I haven't gone out of my way to single out left or right here. You have no idea the restraint I'm exercising.
@Agmorion:
Thanks for your comment!
Your restraint is completely unnecessary. Single out, if you feel it makes your point more solid.
You did interpret my question correctly: what would be the gain? Who would "win" by spending so much money and so many resources to make something like this happen? In the long term, what would is the ultimate goal? Do you believe that the current administration is using the flu and the media to forward some agenda? If so, what, exactly, and what is the long term gain there?
Mind you, it is very hard to convey a completely neutral tone in text. I ask these questions only for information, not for any passive-agressive shenanigans.
SnowUrchin:
I believe there are two equally important commodities for politicians. The first is trust. Do the people who voted me into office (or more importantly, have to power to vote me OUT of office) trust what I’m shoveling? There are two ways to earn trust.
The first is by telling the truth, admitting mistakes and following through on what you say you are going to do, or at least explaining in believable detail why you couldn’t get it done.
The other, and much easier way to earn trust is to tell the people you have taken good care of them in an unavoidable, terrible, yet unverifiable situation in very visible ways. That is, you make a lot of noise about a tragic situation that either doesn’t exist or doesn’t exist to the extent you portray. Then you make a lot of noise about calling in experts to consult on the problem. Then you ride your white stallion into the midst of the perceived threat and claim that you are saving the day. It helps enormously if you can also claim the threat was caused by your predecessor’s astounding lack of judgment. It also helps if the media has a vested interest in continuing the threat and you don’t actually claim to have brought an end to it but without your truly Herculean efforts the problem would be much worse.
You could, for instance, claim that if your ingenious plans are not carried out, six million people will lose their jobs. Then, after millions of people have in fact lost their jobs you could say, “Yes. But six million MORE people would be out of work if you hadn’t carried out my plans. Thus I SAVED six million jobs.”
The second commodity important to all politicians is positive results, or “What have you done for me lately?” As seen above, it’s important to be able to claim you have done well by your constituents. One way to do this is to deal directly with hard problems. You could, for instance, attempt to address the very real problem of large entitlement programs going bankrupt sometime in the not so distant future. Of course, you didn’t create these entitlement programs, or run them into the ground, but you could try to fix the problem. You could submit plans, call in experts, go on a nationwide tour begging and pleading with people to pressure their legislators to address the problem in real and meaningful ways. Of course because of the entrenched nature of these entitlement programs, no one is willing to give up anything to fix the problem and you’ve wasted your time. This is NOT the way to claim victory or positive results.
A better way to achieve results is to ignore the very real problems with existing entitlements and instead create a whole NEW and much larger entitlement program and claim your efforts fix the previous programs. You could, for instance, tell each and every special interest group that their interest will be paid for by the new program. While also telling each group, that their arch rival’s interests will absolutely NOT be paid for by the program. And when anyone points out your duplicity, you can simply say that they’re spreading misinformation. Even when they have your own, recorded voice contradicting your denials, you can pretend they’re just spreading misinformation.
So what happens when these grand, but ultimately flawed schemes run into trouble? You just need to rev-up the panic machine. Issue press releases saying your going to address the public health crisis of swine flu or any other terrifying bogyman that can deflect attention from your failures. Remind people how angry they are about real, exaggerated or even fabricated abuses of your predecessor and how you’re the only one who can bring justice to the lands. Inform people they can only trust you to solve their problems.
It really is best to just trust those you voted for and keep right on voting for them. After all, you’re not really qualified to make these kinds of judgments – are you?
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