Health Officials Estimate 1 Million Americans Now Have Swine Flu
“Is the Swine Flu Panic Overblown?”
-The Atlantic, April 30
“Swine flu warnings ‘totally overblown,’ some say”
-Associated Press, May 7
“As Many as 100,000 Swine Flu Cases Now in U.S.”
-U.S. News & World Report, May 18
“500K Here Had The Flu”
-New York Post, June 11
“Swine flu pandemic declared by World Health Organization”
-Los Angeles Times, June 11
From the Associated Press’ Mike Stobbe this afternoon:
Health officials estimate that as many as 1 million Americans now have the new swine flu. Lyn Finelli, a flu surveillance official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, voiced the estimate at a vaccine advisory meeting Thursday in Atlanta.
The estimate is based on mathematical modeling. Nearly 28,000 U.S. cases have been reported to the CDC, accounting for roughly half the world’s cases. The U.S. count includes 3,065 hospitalizations and 127 deaths.
An estimated 15 million to 60 million Americans catch seasonal flu each year.
The percentage of cases hospitalized has been growing, but that may be due to closer scrutiny of very sick patients. It takes about three days from the onset of symptoms to hospitalization, Finelli said, and the average hospital stay has been three days.
Stobbe noted that the data shows the flu has been more dangerous to adults who catch it. He pointed out:
The average age of swine flu patients is 12, the average age for hospitalized patients is 20, and for people who died, it was 37.
Keeping my fingers crossed this thing doesn’t mutate into a more deadlier strain…
Source:
“US swine flu cases may have hit 1 million”
Mike Stobbe
Associated Press, June 25, 2009
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