Doubtful in either case. The virus has a high mutation rate, and a different strain of flu may be going around next year. According to Wikipedia, since influenza is constantly mutating, a particular vaccine only gives protection for a few years. Every year, the World Health Organization (WHO) predicts which strains are likely to be circulating in the next year, and the pharmaceutical companies use these predictions to develop vaccines to provide the best immunity against these strains. One type of vaccine does not protect against all strains of the flu. In fact, it is possible to be vaccinated and still get the flu, if you catch a strain that there is no vaccine for that particular year.
Does anybody have the numbers – i.e., by how much did the number of flu cases/hospitalizations/deaths exceed normal yearly averages?
As I read it, everyone would still benefit from going out and getting the shot.
Remember when they said young adults were more at risk because they never had been exposed to any versions of a swine flu before? How this flu had potential to be so bad because it would be unlike anything our bodies had ever seen.
Well, swine flu is here now and it is going to mutate and come back year after year. If you did not get the swine flu this year, there is a high likelihood you’ll get it in future years. And your body will most likely be better off dealing with the future mutated versions if you have antibodies from the 1st version of swine flu.
I know a guy who was in medical school in the tropics and contracted a very early case last year. He was very sick and ended up in the hospital for a couple weeks, and spent more time after that making a full recovery. Naturally, he had to take the semester off from medical school. He’s all better now.
And that’s my swine flu story.
Obligatory Night Court reference.
“But I’m feeling much better now.”
A friend of mine just buried a friend of hers last week (a young woman, too). It’s still here and still dangerous.
I just got the shot for it today at Walgreen’s. $18.00.
According to this CNN article, the CDC estimates between 8,000 and 16,000 Americans died from H1N1 between April 2009-December 2009.
Obviously, they didn’t test everyone who died to make sure what killed them, so it’s just an estimate. At any rate, I wouldn’t call 8,000 deaths a non-event.
About 36,000 American die from the flu each year according to the CDC.
I recall reading last fall (around Thanksgiving time) that in the US, the death rate from H1N1 flu was about twice as high as the normal death rate (of about 100 people dying each day). So it is significantly more deadly than the usual strains of flu that pass through each year.
Also, the usual flu deaths are mostly older (age 65+) people, the H1N1 strain has killed more younger people, including infants. (This has a higher social cost, in killing off people before or during their most productive years, rather than older, retired people.)
I wonder how many more people got vaccinated against the regular flu this year? I remember when the H1N1 vaccinations were scarce, regular flu shots were being given out everywhere. From the CDC site, it seams that we are starting to get below even normal flu activity levels at a time when usually the seasonal flu is starting to peak.
This has certainly been an unusual flu year. I expect that epidemiologists will be studying this carefully.
I had what I think was H1N1 last week, based on the duration and the symptoms. So did a couple of guys I work with.
I just not that bad ( although I was pretty miserable for a few days ) and not that big a deal.
The health department is coming to my daughter’s school tomorrow to give the shots to all the students. Seems like it took them long enough!
No, I just work there. 
I suspect an acquaintence of mine at church died from it a few weeks ago - he was pretty healthy, but got sick and died from some respiratory ailment within a few days. I wasn’t nosy enough to ask if it was H1N1 but it seems likely.
Uh huh. They certainly do. But they don’t do it between April and December. People are acting like flu season is over, but with other flus the peak isn’t until this month through the rest of the winter. If you got your number from the CDC page on the seasonal flu, you probably saw the mention of the words “peak” and “January or later” on it too.
According to my son’s pediatrician, it peaked in November and now is in a quasi-dormancy, but is expected to rear its ugly head again before winter is over.
Get your shots.
Yep, I was told to watch out for March as the next big scary month to watch out for.
Whether or not that pans out, we’ll see…
What difference does it make when they die? Especially since flu cases aren’t typed very few are actually documented and many colds get pawned off as the flu and vice vesa.
If a person has the flu and dies of pneumonia it’s not likely they’re going to figure out what kind of flu he had killed him or even if it was the flu.
It’s things like this that make the stats very inexact.
I used to do statistic research for the U of Chicago Sports Meds and it’s a shame how badly these statistics are used in academic settings.
If your sample is wrong, your results are wrong, and so often I would say “this garbage,” and the answer was, “Well it’s what we got.” And off it went to the feds and state agencies.
The fact that the government isn’t offering H1N1 shots en masse means they don’t see it as a huge deal, otherwise they’d be giving them away.
They are giving them away. Mine was free. I don’t know why people are paying for them.
No matter how you cut the statistics, many times more children have died from typed H1N1 than in any year in recent history. They may not type every flu hospitalization, but the do type nearly every fatality.
This is pretty consistent with the “panic” that the CDC has been delivering. Since about June, the CDC has been saying that this is a relatively mild flu for most people. That’s how they get people to panic. By telling us all it is pretty mild.