That last one was not the same. But the fact is a lot of organizations are downgrading it. The dire predictions have not followed. You can point out that it hit younger people. But the regular flu hits kids too. The death rate was not that much higher. The fear level was. The overall death rate has been less than a regular flu. It is a shallow flu that spreads around but kills mostly those with other conditions to amplify it.
Swine Flu Fears Overblown It is a reflection of our 24 hour news programs sensationalizing every story.
Where in that post does it say that the majority of flu cases so far this year were not H1N1? That was the idiotic assertion you made earlier. Are you backing off of it now?
Your kos link is already out of date.
See my last post. New figures show nearly 10,000 estimated deaths between April and mid-November. And the typical flu season is just starting.
You’re free to be unconcerned. I’m glad I’ve taken sensible precautions.
I’m still wondering about the “they” are that you resent so much for taking steps to prevent a serious epidemic. Can you break down for us who “they” are, and what they’ve had to gain by having “sold” us on the wisdom of preparedness?
The hand sanitizer and tissue companies, obviously. 
They seem to be the only ones making any real money off of this so far. Perhaps when there is no longer a vaccine shortage, he’ll add them as well.
Can you link to any of these dire predictions? Somehow, they have completely missed my radar.
Please stick to medically relevant organizations rather than media outlets and blogs for these cites.
You kid right.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/24/world/main5185843.shtml Here is one quick one. There are a ton of them.
http://www.injuryboard.com/national-news/swine-flu-predictions-18-million-hospitalized.aspx?googleid=269668 Fifty percent death rate scary?
Sometimes I think you people are just being difficult for fun.
Sometimes I think you can’t really be serious when you treat a headline from the “National News Desk” of injuryboard.com as some kind of a major media outlet.
It’s the job of the appropriate agencies to map out worst-case scenarios, even if they don’t believe they’ll occur (as in the case of your injuryboard.com article which quotes the report of the presidential advisory council as not expecting a 1918-style pandemic).
As to your cbsnews.com link, the prediction on H1N1 infection rates already appears to be coming true:
“…the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that the number of Americans stricken with H1N1 could reach 20 to 40 percent of the population over the next two years.”
Given that 1/6th (roughly 17%) of Americans have already gotten H1N1 in a little over half a year, the CDC’s prediction looks pretty good.
I have to agree with DSeid here. You’re posting links to articles that you have not read, or maybe just skimmed superficially.
OK, even though I specifically said no media or blogs, I’ll play along. I still don’t see anything that predicts anything particularly dire. The first cite suggests a possible 90,000 to 120,000 deaths over two years. It might be slightly high, but given an estimated 10,000 deaths in the first few months since August, it isn’t unreasonable for a report given only two months after the strain was discovered. Plain old ordinary flu results in 30,000 a year, so even that estimate is only 50% higher than normal.
Of course your second link directly contradicts your idea of dire predictions.
Sometimes I think you don’t read your own links just for fun.
You really don’t read what you link to. Yes, it is the same study, the same lead author, the same two cities used for their models, the same findings. And sure, if more than three times the usual seasonal pediatric death rate for a whole year and still before we usually see more than one pediatric death is defined as not much higher then it’s not much higher.
Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful it is not ten times the normal rate and that we, at least so far, have not exceeded Peds ICU surge capacity. If this bug had turned out to be a bit more virulent then those would both have been very likely realities. This so far has been only a moderately severe pandemic; we’ve been, on the grand scale of things, pretty lucky so far. So far it hasn’t reassorted with H5N1 or mutated into something worse. It might yet but the fact that it hasn’t yet is also something I am grateful for.
What we have had so far has been, for those under 65 and especially kids, significantly worse than the seasonal bugs but no where near as bad as the worst case scenarios that some of us felt the need to be ready for. Again, it aint over yet, but so far the more dire possibilities have not occurred. I continue to hope for the best and that we continue to be at least that lucky; I am also conscious that we need to continue to do what we can to lower the risks of worse outcomes and to be ready in case they occur.
The WHO and the CDC cannot trust the world’s health to continued relative luck.
I’m not certain which part of Australia you are in Bluezooky but it wasn’t a non event in Perth. I was given a vaccination even though I never specifically set out to get one. The media seemed dominated by it for a short while.
You have hit on the point. it was a 24 hour news construction. They trotted out experts who predicted horrible things to increase viewership not to make us smarter. Then they brought out politicians who would appear to be in control if it did not turn out to be very bad. It will be necessary for us to show a little more skepticism in the future. They sell sensationalism. not news.
Hand washing saved lives? Sure if you want to believe it, but how long does it take for hands to get dirty. Do you put plastic bags around your hands? Do you remove all viruses from your air? C’mon. its a sell job. quit buying.
Who is "they"in your scenario? Is it the CDC or is it the media?
The media who is trying to get your attention however they can. They sensationalize stories to get your attention. Not just Fox, but real news does the same thing. Most stories fizzle out. This one did.
The story may have fizzled, but that’s because the consumer has a short attention span. The CDC predictions have been pretty accurate. Everyone will be very happy if this flu virus just fades into obscurity, but it has already killed more children than any flu virus in recent history and that’s a fact.
Well if the claim is that the media hypes irrationalities in every direction it can, then of course I’d agree. The Daily Show did a great bit about the fearmongering (The Doubtbreak.) that everyone really should watch.
I especially love the bit that juxtaposed the media “reports” of that the vaccine may harm your children and what’s worse, there’s not enough of it!
Appropriately graded concern in the face of uncertain but real risk - just doesn’t make for good media copy. And some can’t help but try to misrepresent nonpartisan efforts to protect the health of the world for political partisanship purposes.