AH1N1 / Swine Flu Deaths and Deathrate
The swine flu has been killing hundreds of people each week. With that in mind, it’s difficult to tell how many people it is actually killing. Many nations, including the US, only test certain people to see whether or not they’ve had swine flu. In the US, for example, they don’t need to test people who have died at home from some sort of pneumonia. On top of that, rapid tests typically give a negative result, so if you have the flu but test negative and then die, they won’t feel the need to test you again and you’ll just go down as a pneumonia and influenza death, not as an H1N1 death.
Because of these reporting issues, it’s hard to tell how many people have really died from the flu. In the US, it’s probably safe to estimate that close to 5,000 people have died so far. This reflects pneumonia and influenza deaths that appear above baseline and confirmed H1N1 deaths. With that in mind, many other countries probably have similar counts. Argentina, for example, hasn’t reported deaths for some time. But has swine flu completely stopped there while it hasn’t in Brazil? That doesn’t make any sense.
If you want to get the big picture, you need to understand that many governments aren’t giving the full picture for fear of scaring people and causing panic. That’s the last thing any government wants, so they tend to downplay the extent of the flu and the number of swine flu deaths. If you take this into account, you will find that the deaths from swine flu are probably much higher than expected.
While the deaths are higher, you also have to consider that the confirmed case count should also be increased to account for lack of reporting or testing. The total extent of the flu is probably somewhere between 4 and 10 times the confirmed count, meaning the death rate is most likely hovering in the .5-1% range, which is about half that of the 1918 spanish flu. With that in mind, this flu does have the potential to cause a lot of serious disease and deaths, but we’re fortunate in that it hasn’t yet. It’s still a moderately severe virus and something that should be taken seriously.
If you want to learn more about preparing for the swine flu, check out this guide: Survive Swine Flu
