swine flu pandemic

Flu Watch Dec. 24 – The U.S. Epidemic is Over

by Michael Fumento on December 27, 2009

in Health and Illness, Odds & Ends

The Big Scare of 2009 is over, folks. The U.S. swine flu epidemic has ended.

“The proportion of deaths attributed to pneumonia and influenza (P&I) was below the epidemic threshold,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website Fluview and this chart shows it.

New infections continued to drop this week to only 306 reported by CDC-monitored labs, compared to 1,370 just three weeks before and 11,470 at the height of the epidemic. That’s a plummet of over 97% from the height. Deaths and hospitalizations have plummeted to merely 20 and 313 respectively, compared to 85 and 982 just a week earlier and compared to 189 and 4,970 at the peak in October.
Remember that according to CDC estimates, about 257 Americans die of seasonal flu per day during flu season. Mind you, the swine flu deaths are actual while the seasonal flu ones are estimates so it’s not a completely apples-to-apples comparison.

Only 7 states still report widespread activity, down from 11 last week. The American College Health Association did not report new numbers this week, presumably because of the Christmas holiday.

Repeat, the swine flu epidemic is over.

So where do we go from here? No, unfortunately not to zero. Instead we’re at what’s called an “endemic” level. We can expect infections, hospitalizations, and deaths to continue at something the same rate as this last week until the end of flu season in April.

Judging by what we’ve seen so far in the U.S. and the experiences in New Zealand and Australia, we are in for an extremely mild flu season overall. That’s because swine flu is more contagious than the far deadlier seasonal flu, essentially muscling it aside. People inoculated with swine flu infection don’t get the seasonal flu.

So while you may recall all those “excess” deaths we were supposed to be getting from swine flu (30,000 to 90,000 according to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and “89,000 to 207,000″ according to flu book author John Barry, we will actually get far fewer flu deaths overall both worldwide and in the U.S. because of swine flu.

While the media are finally beginning to admit that the World Health Organization’s swine flu “pandemic,” made possible only by completely redefining the definition, may be the mildest in history, they are not willing to admit that we will actually have fewer flu deaths internationally because of this alleged pandemic.

Yes, folks, the WHO and the media really did pull a fast one on us.

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?

Flu Report Nov. 21 and my piece on the epidemic peak in NRO.

by Michael Fumento on November 20, 2009

in Health and Illness, Odds & Ends

“Swine flu has killed 540 kids, sickened 22 million Americans,” screamed USA Today’s page 1 headline, sub-headed “CDC: Cases, Deaths are Unprecedented.” “Swine flu cases in the U.S. are rising at the fastest pace for influenza in four decades,” breathlessly declares a Bloomberg News article lede. Another article’s title referred to a “national swine flu spike.”

Scary stuff! Phony stuff! And a desperate effort to distract from an alarmist media’s greatest nightmare: That the epidemic has peaked, as I write in National Review Online.

Yet the mainstream may possibly, maybe, sorta, be starting to catch on.

“Health officials say swine flu cases appear to declining throughout most of the U.S.,” reports AP. But, making evident its reporter hadn’t actually bothered to look at the data or try to comprehend it, the story concluded “They say it’s hard to know whether the epidemic has peaked or not, and many people will be gathering – and spreading germs – next week at Thanksgiving.” Well, there you go, there is a possible  exception to the rule of infectious disease epidemic curves known as Farr’s law. It’s called “Thanksgiving.”

Yes, I will be posting about the new CDC swine flu estimates

by Michael Fumento on November 13, 2009 · 1 comment

in Health and Illness

At a glance, though, the estimates look okay it’s the spin and the lack of perspective that I have trouble with. And while the media have missed it, they also show an extremely low case-fatality ratio compared to seasonal flu.

According to the CDC, seasonal flu causes 15 to 60 million infections yearly with 36,000 resulting deaths, for a fatality rate ranging from 0.06% to 0.24%. It now estimates that since the swine flu outbreak began there have been 22 million cases causing 4000 deaths, for a fatality rate of 0.0182%. So the death rate from seasonal flu is about three to 12 times higher.

It estimates there have been 540 child deaths – those under age 18. But if just 3% of seasonal flu deaths were in children it would come out to 1,080 deaths.

Once again, it’s much squealing about nothing.

Once again, the media are squealing about nothing.

Not without honor, save in his own home . . .

by Michael Fumento on November 12, 2009

in Odds & Ends

I’m a hit in the Czech Republic, a land renowned for beautiful architecture and even more beautiful women. Well, at least I got mentioned in a Czech language publication, CDN.CZ, which roughly states:

Other data collected by Michael Fumento from the Washington Times, reveal that people are panicked in the U.S. to seven percent of all visitors to clinics! Most of those who not been affected by H1N1 virus. And they have struck again with such weak signs that do not require hospitalization. By going to the crowded hospital, may greatly help the spread of disease.

Actually, it never occurred to me that mildly ill people going to emergency rooms were spreading the disease to the worried well. But obviously that must be the case. It’s a false attribution I embrace! God bless the Czech Republic!

And those beautiful women.

Flu Watch Nov. 7 – What Swine Flu Isn’t Doing This Week

by Michael Fumento on November 7, 2009

in Health and Illness, Odds & Ends

Well, what swine flu isn’t doing this week is apparently less than what it wasn’t doing last week. In other words, it appears to have peaked.

How do we know?

Here we see it’s going down the right side of the bell curve both in terms of deaths and hospitalizations.

And there’s both a massive decline in samples submitted to CDC surveillance labs and a small decline in those testing positive.

College infections have essentially gone flat.

And finally we see from the Australian swine flu data in figures 1,2, and 7 that swine flu does indeed resemble the normal epidemiological curve. Once cases start going down they keep going down.

Unfortunately, the “hysteria curve” as indicated by emergency room visits is still at the highest level in the century. You can probably credit the Obama administration declaration of a “national emergency” for that.

Swine flu “survivor” speaks out on media hysteria

by Michael Fumento on November 3, 2009

in Health and Illness, Odds & Ends

From a letter to the editor of the Washington Post:

It is ridiculous that The Post has dedicated so much of the A section the past several weeks to the swine flu outbreak. Being a young “survivor” of the swine flu, I have to say that it was the most anticlimactic experience I have ever had. No deathbed, no fever.

The way the media continue to portray the virus is creating unnecessary panic around the world. Many people infected with the virus don’t even know they have it. The public should be outraged at news outlets that have caused mass hysteria and a mad rush for vaccines, medication and hand sanitizer.

Unfortunately, right now they’re too busy being outraged at the lack of the promised vaccine. But hopefully the day will come. Until then, you can read my bevy of swine flu anti-hype articles.

Flu Watch Oct. 31 – What swine flu ISN’T doing this week

by Michael Fumento on October 30, 2009 · 2 comments

in Health and Illness

It’s Halloween, and the monster at the door is swine flu. Or so we’re told. Yet again. And people respond accordingly. “I’ve never seen it like this,” an administrator at Dunwoody Pediatrics in suburban Atlanta told USA Today. “That name, H1N1, sends parents into a panic. We’ve had a lot of verbal abuse.” And yet there’s evidence the epidemic may have peaked!

The CDC reports that hospitalizations for the week ending October 24 barely increased while deaths are actually down from the week before. So when the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology August report said its “plausible scenario” showed 30,000 – 90,000 swine flu deaths peaking in “mid-October” it may have been part right. Though not the part everybody was worried about.

The Flu Count Website shows 1,200 U.S. deaths since the early April outbreak according to media reports. Worldwide it shows only 7,000. (Unfortunately, the site also says it provides official CDC numbers, though I verified that it does not.) That’s about the number the CDC estimates who die of seasonal flu every five days during season and worldwide the number who die of seasonal flu every seven days.

On campuses cases rose last week by a third according to the American College Health Association, but the number of cases per student isn’t dramatically higher than it was in the second week of September.

The percentage of positive tests picked up by the CDC’s surveillance laboratories is also the highest it’s been this fall at 42 percent. Yet the panic factor, as measured by the percentage of visits to emergency rooms and outpatient clinics by people worried they have the flu – and worried enough to seek medical attention – is astounding at over 8 percent. That’s the highest it’s been this century.

With the Obama Administration declaring a national emergency and New York’s governor declaring a state emergency, panic begat panic. The perpetual motion machine of fear drives on.

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