Was swine flu ever a real threat?

Macfury

^^^^^^^^

I like it, though!

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Lichen Software

Yup.. Not everyone died ... Not even that many ... But

1. It did spread round the world

2. The Spanish flue started like this. The first wave was pretty benign. It was the next wave that was the killer.

The only trick that I think they missed was as soon as they figured that this wave at least was benign, expose as many people as possible to it.

They are starting to think that the Black Death that hit Europe in the 1300's, wasn't all plague. They figure that some of the waves that went through were the first passings of what are now considered childhood diseases like measles, mumps and chickenpox.

Lots of population means we will have pandemics in the formal sense of the word. You cannot know in many cases how deadly a particular disease is in advance. Chickenpox is a mild disease in people of European background, especially children. It can be life threatening to an adult East Indian. No natural immunity. What was mild here, could have been extrememly bad in other parts of the world and vice versa for future diseases.

gordguide

Not sure what the point of the debate is. It came, we survived, it may be over. It's right to review and re-evaluate any response to viral outbreaks, but I don't understand the talk that it was not worthwhile. If you don't look at your response, you can't improve when the next threat comes around.

I would certainly hope we could reduce the death rate by 100-fold over the previous similar pandemic. Keep up the good work, I say, and lets do better next time.

It "only" killed 14,000? I can assure you there is someone out there that wished the number was 13,999.

But, it's always a common refrain when a disaster is mitigated or avoided ... people complain that it was much ado about nothing. It's normal, it happens every time, and it's fully expected. It's an excellent barometer of how effective you were that people have the luxury of complaining and forming conspiracy theories. It's like getting an "A" in Safety.

Ever see the YouTube video of the guy cutting the cleaning lady's vacuum cord with scissors? (Note: he hasn't). Isn't it nice that you pretty much have to be that stupid to die from electricity today, compared to 50 years ago?

I tell you, the Swine Flu "conspiracy" that caused millions to fall into the hands of drug companies is nothing compared to the BILLIONS we spend on "useless" electrical safety every year. I say it's time to stop the insanity!!

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Macfury

I don't even think that's possible. There a laws of diminishing returns as you attempt to vaccinate people who don't wish to be vaccinated. As you approach 100% you begin to kill more people who react badly to the vaccine.

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chas_m

Duh, that is because we did something about it. Hello.

There WAS a flu epidemic once that our ancestors really couldn't do anything about. Remarkably similar in both structure and spread to swine flu, in fact. In 1918. Lasted about two years (hey, another coincidence!). It is estimated to have killed 50 to 100 million people.


Really? Do you have some stats that show that 14,000-plus people died from the common cold last year? Or do you have some alternative definition of "a bigger threat" to the one the rest of us use?

Just sayin'.

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chas_m

deleted -- somehow a duplicate was posted.

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adagio

Hindsight is such a wonderful thing. When this NEW virus emerged they didn't really know what they were dealing with. It was very viral and was spreading quickly. There was an immediate scramble to determine the DNA. There were similarities to the Spanish flu but It wasn't immediately known how severely this new disease would affect the world population. Only time would tell the story. I don't consider anyone jumped the gun. Given the time frame needed from identification to mass inoculation, someone had to pull the trigger and give the go ahead.

Vaccines aren't created by the snap of a finger. Some decisions had to made within days and it was deemed important to go full steam ahead with production then distribution. Indeed there were some problems at the distribution end and hopefully some lessons learned. Thankfully the virus wasn't as severe as it potentially could have been and I consider the whole exercise worthwhile.

A couple of things we do know about H1N1. It virtually knocked out all other flu viruses and became the dominant strain world wide. It was different from previous strains in that mortality targeted those not usually affected. Indeed older folks fared much better than the general flu strains. We'll never know how many lives were saved by vaccination. I'm betting a few. Pharma aren't the only beneficiaries from this flu. Companies producing hand sanitizers must have made a killing as well. We'll never know how much this prevented the spread of the disease and how many lives saved as a result.

If this happened again I wouldn't hesitate to get my shot. The tin foil hat brigade can believe the government was out to kill them or it was a plot by big pharma if they wish. I'm thankful H1N1 has turned out to be relatively benign and not a repeat of the Spanish flu. Ah, yes. Hindsight.

MazterCBlazter

They claim there will be a second wave of this strain of flu that could be deadlier. Up until now this flu has resulted in far fewer deaths than the regular flu.

I am expecting little in the way of problems from this h1n1 thing on it's second wave as well. I've been right about this so far, but we shall see.

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eMacMan

There is a mutation that is extremely deadly (mainly in the Ukraine). Unfortunately all those vaccinations will have little impact on it. More bad news; it goes directly to the lungs so generally only shows up during the autopsy rather than on throat swabs. Good news is that pockets have showed up in Canada and the US and it does not seem to be extremely virulent.

Unlike the previous version finding reliable information on this one is nearly impossible. Given that; if there was a grain of salt emoticon I would have inserted it after the previous paragraph.

I would view all statistics associated with H1N1 with great suspicion. Locally at least once they had confirmed cases of H1N1 every case with flu like symptoms was labeled H1N1. While I would guess the intent was to inflate the number of cases and further drive the panic vaccination drive, it may well have deflated the death statistics by calling milder viruses H1N1.

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Macfury

It didn't target young people. It spared people old enough to now be immune because they had already had that particular flu decades ago,

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