swine flu epidemic

Flu Watch Jan. 24, 2010 – Swine flu appears to be sweeping aside seasonal flu

by Michael Fumento on January 24, 2010

in Health and Illness

Reported infections, deaths, hospitalizations all down. Again, though, when adjusted for the time lag they were probably the same as last week. The only thing that still interests me is the percentage of non-swine flu infections. That’s because, as I’ve noted, in countries like Australia and New Zealand, swine flu simply swept the seasonal flu aside. The result was a tremendous reduction in flu deaths as the milder swine flu inoculated people against the deadlier seasonal flu.

I repeatedly predicted we would see the same here and again this week we see evidence of that. Of the infections reported to the CDC labs last week, only four were clearly not swine flu. And here we are in mid-January, approaching what is normally the peak of seasonal flu season (mid-February).

Here’s a report from the Jan. 20 Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

“In ordinary years, the first seasonal flu cases typically show up in December and start mounting in January, said Richard Danila, deputy state epidemiologist. But so far, “there’s been virtually zero” confirmed cases of seasonal influenza, he said. ‘It’s really surprising.’” [Ahem! It wouldn't be if he'd been reading my material!]

Danila said he’s never seen seasonal flu wait this long to make an appearance, adding: “But no one’s willing to say that it won’t come.”

Flu experts speculate the H1N1 virus may end up wiping out other strains of flu, in classic Darwinian fashion.

“Seasonal flu didn’t find a niche and still hasn’t found a niche yet of susceptible people,” Danila said.

“Swine Flu Epidemic ends with a Whimper,” my Philly Inquirer piece

by Michael Fumento on January 15, 2010

in Health and Illness, Regulation

Hidden within the latest edition of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s FluView was this sentence: “The proportion of deaths attributed to pneumonia and influenza was below the epidemic threshold.”

That’s right: The great American swine flu epidemic – which led to two proclaimed national emergencies and thousands of spooky news stories – has ended with a whimper.

Read about it in my new Philadelphia Inquirer article.

Flu Watch Jan. 14 – What Swine Flu ISN’T Doing this week

by Michael Fumento on January 15, 2010

in Health and Illness

Infections are down, hospitalizations are down and deaths are the same. But given the reporting time lag it should prove that these were all about the same as last week. Last week one state reported widespread flu, this week none do. As I’ve written, we’re now at an endemic stage where cases pretty much trot along at the same pace. Again, it might pick up some in February because that’s when it gets coldest and flu, unlike your humble blogger, loves cold weather.

Only 1.4% of infections reported were clearly not swine flu, indicating that so far, as I’ve reported has been the case in Australia and New Zealand, swine flu is muscling aside the deadlier seasonal flu strains – and hence will make for a light flu season.

The CDC has also released a new estimate of infections and deaths, namely 55 million and 11,161 respectively since last April. That keeps the death rate about about 1 per 5,000 or a third to a tenth that of seasonal flu. Meanwhile the World Health Organization is defending itself against charges that it created a phony pandemic, including using the predictable line that one reason the flu has proved so mild is because the WHO did such a splendid job! I address that lunacy elsewhere.

It’s getting kind of dull in here, folks. So I’m discontinuing the weekly watch but I will keep blogging and otherwise writing on the faux pandemic.

Gag me. Public health establishment takes credit for mildness of swine flu season

by Michael Fumento on January 12, 2010

in Health and Illness, Nanny State

Inevitably when pandemic doom fails to pan out, whether it be heterosexual AIDS, SARS, avian flu, or anything else the public health establishment that panicked everyone will claim that the only reason their predictions didn’t prevail was fast action on their part. So it was inevitable with swine flu, as we’re told in an article with the sub-headline: “If You Warn of An H1N1 Epidemic But Stop It, Do You Get Credit?”

Professor Robert Field of the Drexel University School of Public Health tells ABC News online that his poor fellows were, as the piece put it, “damned if they do and damned if they don’t.” According to the story, with the subtitle of “Public health officials faced a tough choice in May and June,” “to some extent, we may be seeing a milder epidemic than we feared because of the vaccine and other measures people are taking” says Field.

Pouring on the unmitigated gall, he added: “It’s so easy to be a victim of your own success.”

As they say in The Valley, “Gag me with a spoon!” As I’ve written, the epidemic here peaked in mid-October. Nobody had vaccine immunity in this country then. Nobody. Australia and New Zealand had incredibly mild flu seasons even though almost all of the flu was of the H1N1 swine variety and there was no vaccine even available until the seasons ended. Even now, relatively few Americans have gotten the shot and according to news accounts they’re not going to. More and more are claiming they’ve been bamboozled.

Moreover, there were people in May and June who relayed evidence that swine flu was proving to be extremely mild. Well, there was one person at least. Me.

My first published article on the subject, with the telling title “The Price of a Porcine Panic,” appeared June 1. I said it would ridiculous for the WHO to declare a pandemic, and as soon as it did I wrote why it had been ridiculous. It was obviously milder than seasonal flu, when heretofore flu pandemics were defined by extreme severity.

Later on, as the data, came in, I documented how vastly milder swine flu was. This was before the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology made its incredible prediction of 30,000 to 90,000 deaths.

No, the public health establishment bungled at best and lied at worst. I’ve written 14 articles at countless blogs about it. Don’t let them off the hook this time.

Flu Watch Dec. 30 – What Swine Flu ISN’T Doing

by Michael Fumento on January 2, 2010

in Health and Illness, Odds & Ends

It’s a holiday so we’ll make this quick. Infections have somehow managed to drop again as have deaths and hospitalizations. Just 15 deaths reported this past week, versus 257 a week for seasonal flu during the season. Only four states reported widespread flu activity. Early January is when seasonal flu normally really gets going so we might see something of a bounce up in the next couple of weeks, especially since at 15 deaths there’s nowhere to go but up. But it shouldn’t be by much. Swine flu came in 2009 like a piglet and went out like a piglet.

Swine flu also unexceptional in contagiousness

by Michael Fumento on December 30, 2009 · 1 comment

in Health and Illness, Odds & Ends

With a massive amount of data indicating swine flu is vastly milder than seasonal flu, a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine also puts the kibosh on the claims that it spreads like gangbusters.

Researchers found that in households in which one person had swine flu it spread to 10 percent of other household members. During the flu pandemics of 1957 and 1968, 14 percent to 20 percent of household members were infected while normal seasonal flu spreads to 5 percent to 40 percent of the rest of the family.

In other words, once again we see there is absolutely nothing “pandemic” about swine flu. It’s a term the World Health Organization applied to serve its own interests. It would serve our interests to replace the WHO with a body that cares more about health than politics and power-seeking.

Flu Watch Dec. 18 – What Swine Flu ISN’T Doing this Week

by Michael Fumento on December 18, 2009 · 2 comments

in Odds & Ends

New infections continued to drop, down this week to only 391 reported by CDC-monitored labs, compared to 1,370 just two weeks before and 11,470 at the height of the epidemic. So that’s a plummet of over 96% from the height. Deaths and hospitalizations are less than half those of last week, and while formerly the CDC refrained from releasing exact numbers it’s now doing so. So the exact number of deaths for last week is 56.

Remember that according to CDC estimates, about 257 Americans die of seasonal flu per day during flu season. Of course, the swine flu deaths are actual while the seasonal flu ones are estimates so it’s not a completely apples-to-apples comparison.

Only 11 states still report widespread activity, down slightly from 14 last weeks.

Finally, cases do continue to come in at above the epidemic threshold nationally. On college campuses it’s a different picture, though. College cases of CDC-defined “influenza-like illness” are definitely at an endemic level, having dropped all the way down to 4.1 cases per 10,000 slightly up to 5.2 and then slightly down to 3.4 They should stay more or less in that range for the rest of the flu season with perhaps higher cases coming in February at the peak of the normal seasonal flu season. Colleges are still reporting only three deaths out of more than 87,000 cases.

No, swine flu isn’t doing much this week. And that’s its future. It’s just plain lazy, happy to roll around in the mud while infecting impressive numbers of people but killing very few. Too bad it can’t kill the reputations of the doomsayers who declared it a “pandemic” and compared it to the horrible Spanish flu of 1918-1919.

Flu Watch Dec. 11 – What Swine Flu ISN’T Doing this Week

by Michael Fumento on December 11, 2009

in Odds & Ends

New infections are way down this week to only about 480 reported by CDC-monitored labs, compared to 1,370 just the week before and 11,470 at the height of the epidemic. So that’s a drop of 65% in one week and a plummet of 96% from the height. Deaths are the same as last week at what appear to be about 70 (you can only eyeball the bar graph, the CDC doesn’t release exact figures), while hospitalizations appear to have been cut by about half. Remember that according to CDC estimates, about 257 Americans die of seasonal flu per day during flu season – which is what we’re in. Of course, the bar graphs show counted deaths versus estimated deaths so it’s not a completely apples-to-apples comparison.

Only 14 states still report widespread activity, although expect to see that go up again shortly as we’re about to enter the time of year when seasonal flu normally begins to hit hard. Finally, cases do continue to come in at above the epidemic threshold. I predicted last week that we might go endemic this week but not yet.

The American College Health Association’s latest weekly survey of CDC-defined “influenza-like illness” shows college campus cases are actually up 27% from the week before, but that’s from a low 4.1 cases per 10,000 students to 5.2. This would seem to indicate that the epidemic on campuses has now ended and that we’ve entered the endemic stage where we can expect numbers like these probably into March. Cumulatively, out of about 87,000 cases reported there have been only three deaths. There have probably been more deaths from goldfish swallowings at fraternity initiations.

The CDC also released a new estimate, that 50 million Americans have been infected, with more than 200,000 hospitalizations nearly 10,000 deaths. That’s just one death per 5,000 cases, yet as I’ve pointed out, that’s probably high considering that France’s estimate is one per 48,000 infections while Japan’s is one per 140,000. Either our health care system really is as bad as some claim or the CDC is playing fast and loose with the figures.

In any case, the CDC estimates that for seasonal flu it’s a death rate ranging from 417 – 1,667 so any way you look at it swine flu is vastly milder. And all of those 50 million Americans have essentially been inoculated against the seasonal flu. We’re in for a mild flu season, indeed. The only question is whether they CDC will ultimately admit it.

File this under “Shocked, shocked!”

by Michael Fumento on December 7, 2009

in Health and Illness, Odds & Ends

“Experts predict flu pandemic could be mildest on record” declares the Washington Post headline. Unless, that is, you use the old definition of pandemic before the World Health Organization made it so that severity no longer counts. In that case, this would be called not a “pandemic” but “an extremely mild flu strain.

Another shocking revelation? It turns out the Presidential Council of Advisors on Science and Technology “plausible scenario” of swine flu deaths wasn’t all that plausible. Rather than 30,000 – 90,000 Americans dead, a new study by Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch and others calculates “the virus might directly cause between 6,000 and 45,000 deaths by the end of the winter, with the final toll probably falling somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000.”

Insofar as according to the CDC’s estimate we already had about 4,000 deaths by mid-October, that means there may not be that many more fatalities. And mind you, those are not net deaths. In other words, it doesn’t take into account the protective effect we’ve seen in Australia and New Zealand whereby people are inoculated by the mild swine flu so they don’t die from the vastly more severe seasonal flu. In other words, expect a final toll from flu overall to be fewer cases this year – judging from the aforementioned cases far fewer.

Lipsitch, not incidentally, helped come up with that notorious 30,000 – 90,000 number.”Those were the best estimates we could make at the time based on the data available at the time,” Lipsitch told the Post. Really? Then how was non-epidemiologist Michael Fumento able to immediately show the figure was utterly absurd? Am I some sort of Nostradamus who prefers debunking government studies to making a killing at the race track. Or was the PCAST report clearly nonsense from the outset, designed not to inform but to panic?

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