Hello,
This is not the type of thing I would normally blog on, but there seems to be a fair amount of chatter and mis-information about the new flu strain, happening in the chat rooms at worthychat. So, I have decided to put this information here, in order to have it readily available when the topic comes up.
Well, there are some things that people should consider before going nut or getting panicky. First of, this is not a pandemic at this time, it is pre-pandemic, and perhaps will be pandemic . . .
However, we have pandemics from time to time, and they are not always scary things, but they are cause for concern.
Here is what I think people should keep in mind as they hear the stories of death, that will likely happen . . .
Reagular seasonal flu, that we are all familiar with, causes deaths aslo. In the United States, we typically have 36,000 deaths a year from seasonal flu, with no less that 800 deaths each week since the beginning of this year EACH WEEK.
World wide, the estimates run from 1/4 million to 1/2 a million deaths from regular flu each year. Keep those numbers in mind as you here the numbers from this new strain of flu that is making the headlines. I think the spread of fear through the internet, is way more unusual than the spread of flu from person to person.
I do not know about other parts of the world, but in the states, 90% of flu deaths occur in people over 65 years of age.
So, so far, this new strain of flu is spreading quickly, but it has not demonstrated itself to be any more dangerous that regular seasonal flu at this time, but being a new stain, we do knot know alot about the strain yet, and since it is not flu season, se also do not know if it will become worse when flu season arrives, or whether infections will taper off, we basically just don’t have enough infomation on this particular flu to make intelligent projections, butwe also do not kno enough to panic over it either.
Information provided believed accurate as of April 30, 2009
Information derived from CNN, Center for Disease Control, and pandemicflu.gov website
BTW 109 cases of this so far in the U.S. with 1 death to date – that being in the state of Texas