So, let's get this straight.
1. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), when there is "efficient and sustained human-to-human transmission" of an influenza outbreak. That is a Level 6 problem -- a full-blown Pandemic.
2. According to the WHO's most recent update, On June 1, there area bout 17,500 cases of A/H1N1 flu internationally, with 115 deaths. That's level 6, technically.
3. Somehow, though, I think there's something wrong with the mathematic model the WHO is using to predict and declare pandemic situations. Level 6 should mean that people are dying like flies caught in a brush fire. But that's not happening.
P.S.: Just don't go on any Australian cruise ships for a while.
Monday 1 June 2009
6 comments:
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There is an has been an outbreak of swine flu in a school 6 miles from here..I am holding my breath (yet again) and making the children wash their hands a lot!
ReplyDeleteOh, dear, Joanne: Cold-blooded statistics are one thing; the school virtually next door is something quite different. I do hope everyone stays well. Meanwhile, my wife and some of her family are taking a cruise on a ship, up Canada's west coast to Alaska and back. Australian cruise ship; American cruise ship; whatever. I'm about as calm as a cat on a hot tin roof. I don't want to spoil her fun. But, who, me? Nervous?
ReplyDeleteKind of makes you glad they got it wrong....don't you think?
ReplyDeleteRight you are, Bogey. Better this than the other way around -- a mathematical model that underestimated the problem.
ReplyDeleteYep, I've been hearing a lot of confusion about that around here, too. People mistake "pandemic" for something else... something necessarily deadly. Bushfire mentality. Thanks for the blog visit and comments. Bears don't get swine flu, do they?
ReplyDelete® Rachel: Thanks for visiting, and ading your thoughts.
ReplyDeleteActually Bears might get swine flu. It all depends on a host of factors. Ferrets, for example, catch A/H1N1 flu fairly easily I've been told.