I am instinctively skeptical of most things that government officials and the talking heads on TV say. Therefore, I have refused to believe that the Swine Flu (la gripe porcina in Spanish) is as bad as the CDC, the U.S. government, and the TV pundits would have us believe. Remember the bird flu? Remember SARS?
So, being the meticulous scholar that I am, I decided to do my own very informal research in the matter; I wanted to compare the Swine Flu to seasonal influenza. Following are the data. I give two sets of seasonal influenza numbers; the WHO web site did not provide absolute numbers but only an estimated range so I used the maximum and minimum from this range in my calculation:
| Swine Flu | Seasonal (Min) | Seasonal (Max) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cases | 375,000 | 3,000,000 | 5,000,000 |
| Deaths | 4,500 | 250,000 | 500,000 |
| Mortality Rate | 1.2% | 8.3% | 10.0% |
For those not comfortable with tables, charts, etc., I will put this in plain English: Seasonal flu kills between 250,000 and 500,000 every year; that's a mortality rate of 8%–10%. Swine flu, on the other hand has killed 4,500 people setting its mortality rate to 1.2%. Any death from any strain of influenza is a physical evil; ideally the death rate would be zero. But seasonal flu kills 7%–9% more people every year than Swine Flu has in all of 2009. Maybe we're blowing Swine Flu out of proportion.
References:
"Influenza", World Health Organization.
"Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 - update 69", WHO.
