Well, honestly, it does sound a few alarmist bells. Let's look, for instance, at that statistic about fever. Here it is from the source (http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/167/7/775):
"Fever was observed in 37.0% of A/H1N1, 40.6% of A/H3N2 (p = 0.86)..."
Note the p value of 0.86, indicating that that isn't notably different from the incidence of fever in seasonal (H3N2) influenza. The NS article implies (by my reading) that lack of fever is a big difference between the H1N1 and seasonal varieties when it isn't-about half (more or less) of people who get any flu get a fever (I've left out the bit about influenza B, where even fewer people got fevers).
Here, on the other hand, is a good line from the NS article:
"Think of it this way. 2009 H1N1 flu is effectively two diseases: ordinary flu for most, a lung disease that can kill quickly in a few. Most of the severe cases are in babies, and adults aged between 20 and 50. The impact of the deaths of young adults, on dependent families and the economy, will be much greater than that of the deaths among the elderly."
(emphasis added)
For *most people*, H1N1 is just the damned flu. For a small but unfortunate minority, it's a killer. Most people hate that randomness; it's easier to think of H1N1 as the Killer Flu! because that works much better in most people's mindset.
(To be fair, it likely isn't random; the people who are likely to die will end up having something in common, we just don't know what it is. Yet).
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
randysmith) wrote2009-11-07 11:02 am
no subject
"Fever was observed in 37.0% of A/H1N1, 40.6% of A/H3N2 (p = 0.86)..."
Note the p value of 0.86, indicating that that isn't notably different from the incidence of fever in seasonal (H3N2) influenza. The NS article implies (by my reading) that lack of fever is a big difference between the H1N1 and seasonal varieties when it isn't-about half (more or less) of people who get any flu get a fever (I've left out the bit about influenza B, where even fewer people got fevers).
Here, on the other hand, is a good line from the NS article:
"Think of it this way. 2009 H1N1 flu is effectively two diseases: ordinary flu for most, a lung disease that can kill quickly in a few. Most of the severe cases are in babies, and adults aged between 20 and 50. The impact of the deaths of young adults, on dependent families and the economy, will be much greater than that of the deaths among the elderly."
(emphasis added)
For *most people*, H1N1 is just the damned flu. For a small but unfortunate minority, it's a killer. Most people hate that randomness; it's easier to think of H1N1 as the Killer Flu! because that works much better in most people's mindset.
(To be fair, it likely isn't random; the people who are likely to die will end up having something in common, we just don't know what it is. Yet).
no subject