U.S. swine flu deaths hit double digits

[Roon]

SALT LAKE CITY - Swine flu forced Christina Huitron to make a choice no mother should ever have to make.

On Wednesday she told doctors to take her 21-year-old son off life support, making Marcos Sanchez the nation’s 10th fatality associated with the newly discovered virus that continues to spread across the globe.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30865696/

[NeedleCast]

1. MSN is certainly trying to keep this non-story in the news

[Oregone]

3. Why is it a non-story?

[skepticscott]

5. Because

on average, 100 people die in this country every day from the regular flu.

[Oregone]

7. There are more incidences of the standard flu

But its fatality rate is lower (according to recent WHO numbers)

If as many people contract this in the winter as standard flu, there will, based on preliminary numbers, be more deaths.

Gross deaths is a useless means to calculate the deadly nature of a virus. Ebola kills 10 to 100 people a year. Is it not deadly? Your single criteria assessment of this virus is somewhat lacking, IMHO.

[skepticscott]

8. My point was not

which virus has the higher mortality rate. My assessment was of the media, not the virus, if you'd been paying attention, and they could care less about mortality rates. The media will play up anything that they think will scare people enough to make them tune in, whether it's really something to be worried about or not. Air travel is far, far safer than auto travel, and yet the media pays virtually no attention to the more than 100 deaths every day in traffic accidents, but will milk a story of 100 people being killed in a plane crash for days, if not weeks.

[yellowcanine]

2. Far more people probably died from oak pollen during the same time period.

Asthmatics die every spring when oak trees are shedding pollen but you don't see "KILLER OAK TREES!" headlines.

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. Bet we will at some point. *sigh*

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. Two whole digits?!

[Wednesdays]

9. K&R

:kick: