Swine Flu May Have Infected More Than 100,000 Americans

[Prometheus Bound]

Source: CDC via Atlanta Journal

SATURDAY, May 16 (HealthDay News) -- While the official tally of confirmed U.S. swine flu cases topped 4,700 on Friday, experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now estimate the true number of infections at more than 100,000 nationwide.
http://www.ajc.com/health/content/shared-auto/healthnews/cdc-/627172.html

New Virus Appears to Be a Factor in Extended Flu Season
By Rob Stein and Kimberly Kindy
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, May 16, 2009
The new swine flu virus is spreading rapidly around the United States, and more than half of the states are reporting unusually high levels of flu-like illness at a time of year when the respiratory disease usually disappears, federal health officials said yesterday.

About half of the people with flu are testing positive for the new virus, indicating it is playing a significant role in the unusual pattern of disease, officials said.

"We would be expecting to see the season to be slowing down or almost completely stopped," said Daniel Jernigan of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "But what we're seeing is there are some areas that actually have reports of the amounts of respiratory disease . . . that are equivalent to peak influenza season."

The CDC has officially reported 4,714 confirmed or "probable" swine flu cases in 47 states, and 22 states are reporting widespread flu, but there could be as many as 100,000 cases around the country, Jernigan said.

"This is not something we would expect to see at this time," said Jernigan, adding that the rising count is not simply the result of doctors looking harder for cases.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/15/AR2009051503533.html

Swine flu up 1,000 cases in 24 hours
Posted 8 hours 52 minutes ago
Updated 8 hours 19 minutes ago
The World Health Organisation says the number of confirmed swine flu cases has risen by nearly 1,000 in 24 hours to 8,451. The increased toll comes as health experts defend Mexico and the WHO in their handling of swine flu, an outbreak that has sparked a global alert and is likely to cost billions of dollars.

The number of people killed by the influenza A (H1N1) virus also rose to 72, compared with 65 on Friday, the WHO said. Over the past week the number of people infected by the virus has risen sharply with the United States, followed by Mexico, where the epidemic began, recording the highest number of cases.

A mathematical study, published in the US journal Science this week, showed that the virus, while contagious, has a case fatality rate at 0.4-0.6 per cent - far lower than feared although somewhat higher than a normal "seasonal" flu.

"It's clear that we are facing a virus that is not the virus we were actually afraid of facing at the time of the initial testing," Dr Pittet said. But, he said, the peril was far from resolved.
- AFP
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/05/16/2572619.htm?section=world

May 16, 2009
Swine flu not the only bug going around in the U.S.
Seasonal cases up at a time when they should be slowing

BY MARILYNN MARCHIONE
ASSOCIATED PRESS
U.S. health officials are seeing a surprisingly high number of cases of ordinary, seasonal flu at a time when the flu season typically peters out.

About half of the people recently testing positive for the flu have the new swine flu virus, Dr. Daniel Jernigan of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said Friday.

The rest have seasonal flu, which still is causing widespread or regional illness in about two dozen states, "something that we would not expect at this time," he said. "We would be expecting the season to be slowing down or almost completely stopped."

The higher numbers of seasonal flu cases do not seem to be caused just by health officials looking harder this year because of worries about swine flu, Jernigan said. A network of doctors that tracks how many patients are coming in with flu-like symptoms, plus evidence from school outbreaks and lab testing, points to more flu -- not just more reporting, he said.

Swine flu continues to affect more younger people -- those ages 5 to 24 -- and the CDC still is seeing relatively few cases in older people.
http://www.freep.com/article/20090516/NEWS07/905160341

Edit: Replaced old Australian article accidentally posted with new one; added Freep article

Read more: http://www.ajc.com/health/content/shared-auto/healthnews/cdc-/627172.html

[BlooInBloo]

1. (shrug) There *COULD* be as many as 300 million or so.

Could.

[Prometheus Bound]

4. "About half of the people with flu are testing positive for the new virus."

I take it that is how they came up with the figure.

[BlooInBloo]

9. *yawn*

[Milspec]

16. Swine Flu

The new Y2K

[bluestateguy]

2. More scare stories

nt

[Prometheus Bound]

5. I don't find it scary.

But I'd rather they report it than not.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

3. I'm sure I had it

I did I think although there's no way of testing it now. Some weeks ago my husband and I had this nasty flu that knocked us off our feet. Haven't had anything like this since 1970s.

[Prometheus Bound]

6. It causes more vomiting and diarrhea than usual flu cases.

The new cases appear to have somewhat more vomiting and diarrhea than is usually seen in flu, which mostly causes coughing, fever, sore throat and muscle aches.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25379257-23109,00.html

[Robb]

17. That's how I knew I had "standard" flu

Knocked me on my butt for two weeks solid. Still a little weaker than normal. It's rough enough, I can't imagine having the symptoms I had, plus GI issues.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

22. we had 'the runs'

and had nausea and couldn't eat

[Bigmack]

18. YES! Us too....

when we were down in a little town in So Cal - actually our date with illness was in late Jan, early Feb. This little town has a large # of Hispanic workers - tho fewer this year because the local economy there is so rotten. We had our flu shots last fall, and yes, we COULD have had the "alternative flu" for which the shots gave no protection. But THAT flu wasn't "supposed" to be all THAT bad, and we were sicker than I EVER remember being with a flu, complete with a trip to the emergency room! Which is DEFINITELY not me! And at that time, the H1N1 hadn't yet been officially identified in this country, so of course I wasn't tested for it. Just from a sorta scientific curiosity, I'd pay $ if there were some test that could tell a person if they had anti-bodies to the H1N1 species of flu! I'm really curious - Ms Bigmack

[Rosa Luxemburg]

21. i think the swine flu has been around a lot longer than they think

[Cirque du So-What]

7. Yeah, it's infecting people. That what flu do!

I still haven't seen convincing evidence that this strain is worthy of the hysteria the corporate media are trying to whip to a frothy texture.

[necso]

8. Unfortunately, the CDC uses Flash,

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/usmap.htm

but if you go back a few weeks (to weeks 15, 16), you can get their take on the spread of late season flu. (This week's map could prove interesting.)

Now, this is almost certainly not entirely the H1N1 flu of recent(?) vintage. But it may well be a significant contributor.

Notably, (initial) identification/containment (apparently) failed miserably. And susceptible people especially might want to take the usual precautions.

[Prometheus Bound]

10. Fascinating map. Thank you.

[mbperrin]

11. Blah blah, TERRA, IRAN, NUKES, KIM IL JONG, TAXES,

REDS UNDER THE BED!!!!

Sorry, not interested. Still don't want the banksters to steal the country from under us.

[Prometheus Bound]

12. I'm afraid you're a tad late about the banksters' theft.

[mbperrin]

15. You're right, of course, except for a jar of quarters I've got in the sock

drawer - shhhhhhhhhh.... mum's the word!

[Cali_Democrat]

13. Panic time!!!

[NickB79]

14. This is excellent news

My condolences to anyone who was sick with the disease, but the high number of infected vs. only 3 recorded deaths so far indicates the disease has a very low lethality rate.

[aquart]

20. Yes, thank god.

But it's hitting so hard in the schools here that the faculty are as sick as the students.

[martymar64]

19. I got tested for it two days ago, turned out I just had bronchitis

I was sick all of last week and finally went to the Dr.. They tested me for swine flu but it was just a recurrence of bronchitis.

I guess that's a good hint to finally quit smoking.