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WHO Says Swine Flu May Have Peaked In the US
Hugh Pickens writes "The World Health Organization says that there were 'early signs of a peak' in swine flu activity in parts of the Northern Hemisphere, including the US. The American College Health Association, which surveys more than 250 colleges with more than three million students, said new flu cases had dropped 27 percent in the week ending on November 13th from the week before, the first drop since school resumed in the fall. Nonetheless, Dr. Anne Schuchat, the director of vaccination and respiratory disease at the CDC, chose her words carefully. 'We are in better shape today than we were a couple of weeks ago,' she says. 'I wish I knew if we had hit the peak. Even if a peak has occurred, half the people who are going to get sick haven't gotten sick yet.' Privately, federal health officials say they fear that if they concede the flu has peaked, Americans will become complacent and lose interest in getting vaccinated, increasing the chances of another wave. However, Dr. Lone Simonsen, a former CDC epidemiologist, says she expects a third wave in December or January, possibly beginning in the South again. Based on death rates in New York City and in Scandinavia, Simonsen argues that both 1918 and 1957 had mild spring waves followed by two stronger waves, one in fall and one in midwinter, adding that in the pandemic of 1889, the bulk of the deaths occurred in the third wave. 'If people think it's going away, they can think again.'"
Here in Canada, my doctor said yesterday that he is seeing a drop in people coming in with flu symptoms. It used to be more in the past few weeks.
Also, Google Flu Trends shows a marked drop. In the USA, there is a drop too.
I have also observed less absence at my little kid's school as well.
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Interestingly, Google Flu Trends shows similar signs, although there the peak already occured in October.
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the reason for concern is legitimate, albeit possibly overtcautipus. Two traits make this flu serious. One is the observation that a higher percentage of deaths are occuring in young people and two is that, being a strain with genes that have recently jumped from swine and possibly birds makes it less stable.
I'm not sure about the Netherlands but the US uses the vaccine adverse event reporting system to track all vaccine associated illness and its public ally available....the side effects seem to be about the same as most seasonal flu shots.
Where else? Pandemistan.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
Our whole family just had H1N1 and yet none of us could get a vaccine beforehand, not even our 2 year old daughter. If vaccine was available, all of us would have gotten it. To top the confusion, the doctor is still asking us to get the shot when it becomes available. Give me a frigging break.
Now what amazes me is that our daughter coughed for 2 days and then she was fine, while we are still sick after 3 weeks. Daycares must create some kind of mutant immune systems that put interspecies viruses to shame.