It probably wont take anything near 10,000 deaths to get people shitting in their pants, but one thing we should all keep in mind is that around 40,000 people die from the "regular" flu here in the United States every single year. As long as the number of deaths from this strain is fewer, its a relatively minor event.
I am keeping score. So far worldwide since the first I have heard about the outbreak here is the breakdown of deaths. Normal Flu 13354 deaths Swine Flu 8 deaths
I think I have heard we have about 100 deaths a day from auto accidents and about the same number for homicides per day.
True. My grandfather was in WW1 and told me about all the 1918 Spanish flu casualties. People got sick in the morning and we dead by nightfall. Perhaps you can research what affect that had on the markets back then
...of the *reported* sick... conditional on their being sufficiently ill to report... which may mean anything, because the reporting frequency is unknown and likely overestimates the base illness severity - selection bias anyone? It may be even that a pandemic strain is not much more deadly than a seasonal flu, but humans have no immunity, so the infection rate is extremely high (up to 50% of the overall population, judging by the UK, not US stockpiles), which can overwhelm the health care system and the economic infrastructure. IOW, it may be more of a problem due to its systemic impact (lack of hands to cater for basic needs such as refuse collection, undertakers, groceries, etc) than the individual risk. Which judging by the H1N1 strain's previous *sustainable* virulence (which cannot be excessively high or else it will automatically prevent the virus from spreading), i.e. judging by the Spanish flu epidemiology, is around 2% in the overall population [1] and this is the risk you wanted to find. I'm by no means donwplaying its magnitude - it is like your lifetime risk of fatal accidental nontransport injury compressed into the space of just a few months... [2] You had better get religion, mate, or at least stockpile on the Tamiflu, just in case the UK government was correct in its estimate of the infection rate, while the Bush administration underestimated it by half :| [1] Bird Flu Preparation: We Are Not Ready, URL: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/2/3/83235/13935 [2] Odds of Death Due to Injury, United States, 2005, National Safety Council, URL: http://www.nsc.org/research/odds.aspx
"... Even those figures pale in comparison with the 1918-19 flu pandemic: At least 550,000 people died in the United States alone. The worldwide death toll was estimated at 20 million to 40 million, or perhaps even as many as 100 million by some accounts. The flu killed more people than World War I (which may have contributed to its spread). .... So does that mean the current outbreak is just a piddling pandemic? Not necessarily. For one thing, it's far too early to assess how this outbreak will end up. For another thing, the pattern of the deaths so far is distressing. Both those caveats draw on the lessons learned from the 1918 flu. The age factor "The big difference between seasonal flu and pandemic flu is that when you move to pandemic flu, you get a pattern that the older people are not affected," said Lone Simonsen, an epidemiologist at George Washington University who is also the founder and president of SAGE Analytica. The age distribution curve for a typical seasonal flu looks like a "U," while the distribution pattern for the 1918 flu was more of a "W," as seen on this chart. Experts worry that the distribution pattern for the current outbreak looks similar. Every death from the flu is a tragedy, but it's particularly tragic when a significant number of the fatalities come in the 20-to-50 age bracket rather than the over-85 bracket. .... Wave of the future Even if the current outbreak turns out to be relatively mild, that's not necessarily the end of the story. "When you look at the past pandemics, you observe that they often come in waves," Simonsen said. She said a review of the records from 1918 show that the year's first flu flare-up actually came in the spring and summer of that year, in the form of a less lethal but highly transmissible infection. That appears to have been the precursor for the deadlier waves of influenza that swept across the world that fall. If the current outbreak turns out to follow a similar pattern, that would be "good and bad news," Simonsen said. It's bad news because a worse outbreak could conceivably follow. But it's good news, she said, because we'd have "more time to defend ourselves," using all the defenses that have been developed since 1918 ....." http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/04/30/1917163.aspx
Officials Confirm Second U.S. Swine Flu Death By William Branigin and Ceci Connolly Washington Post Staff Writers Tuesday, May 5, 2009; 4:35 PM Health authorities today reported a second death in the United States from swine flu -- a woman in south Texas -- even as the federal government rescinded its recommendation that schools shut down if they have any suspected cases of the virus. The Texas Department of State Health Services announced this afternoon that a woman from Cameron County, the southernmost county in the state, died earlier this week after contracting swine flu. It said she had "chronic underlying health conditions" but did not elaborate or provide any other details on the woman. The department said the fatality was "the first death of a Texas resident with H1N1 flu."
US swine flu deaths hit double-digits By MIKE STARK â 24 minutes ago SALT LAKE CITY (AP) â Marcos Antonio Sanchez went from being an outgoing 21-year-old to Utah's first swine flu fatality in less than a week. Last week, Sanchez enjoyed swimming and lived with his girlfriend. Then on Saturday, he checked into a hospital, vomiting blood and burning with fever. His lungs shut down on Tuesday. The next day, his mother made the agonizing decision to take her son off life-support, pushing the nation's death toll to 10 people.