Flu pandemic could kill half million in U.S.-report

[pie]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Half a million Americans could die and more than 2 million could end up in the hospital with serious complications if an even moderately severe strain of a pandemic flu hits, a report predicted on Friday.
But the United States only has 965,256 staffed hospital beds, said the report from the Trust for America's Health.

"This is not a drill. This is not a planning exercise. This is for real," said the Trust's executive director, Shelley Hearne, in a statement.

Pandemics hit in 1918 -- killing up to 40 million people globally -- 1957 and 1968. Health experts all say the world is overdue for another and fear the avian flu in Asia may be it.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/health_flu_dc;_ylt=ApsPlLE.1pKQMxVGs_cwKp9g.3QA;_ylu=X3oDMTA4b3FrcXQ0BHNlYwMxNjkz

[PATRICK]

1. Sounds like

they are stating this strongly because the governments are doing little or nothing about it. from the tone I bet they are actually underplaying the numbers so as not to be ACCUSED of what they are trying to do to get rational preparation for likely scenarios.

Instinctively people and leaders believe it will be uneven depending on sophistication and urban disadvantages. That is to say, it can't happen o us! The usual dumb denial that today's current leadership sinks below the level of every day.

[pie]

3. If this hits us with the numbers they cite people will freak out

500,000 dead... maybe more. 2,000,000 requiring hospitalization
... maybe more.
It would undoubtedly hit every one of us close to home.

[phantom power]

8. So far, the recorded outbreaks of HN51 have had extremely high mortality

The last three outbreaks had mortality rates of 75%, 60% and 30%. The final form of the disease is likely to have a lower mortality, as it mutates into a more communicable form.

But 500K is relatively mild, compared to what it could be. If it kills just 1% of the US population, that would be 3 million people. The 1918 pandemic had a mortality rate of 2%, and we aren't any better prepared than they were in 1918, unless they can get a lot of the vaccine manufactured in time.

If they are selling 500K as a worst-case scenario, I think they're deluded. Or trying to keep us deluded.

[Cobalt Violet]

2. Sound like a neo-con's wet dream.

[jaxx]

4. Week End Hype

Also in the late news was the 2nd mad cow disease finding. And dubya will give his prime-time televised "Iraq or Bust" speech to a captive audience in Ft. Bragg on Tues.

Downing Street Memo's..............never heard of them. The Bushco's are running scared..........time for another bold orange alert.

[smirkymonkey]

5. Isn't there a limit to the human population that the earth can

sustain? Maybe mother nature is thinning out the herd so that the species survives. Personally, I think overpopulation is a huge problem that has been inadequately addressed.

[ben_thayer]

6. You're absolutely right SM

I believe there are VERY few of the worlds present crises that can't be directly traced to overpopulation. And when natures population controls start seriously kicking in, they are going to make the miseries of abortion look like a picnic.

[smirkymonkey]

7. Found an interesting link to that end...

http://dieoff.org/page5.htm

"The global population in Scenario 1 rises from 1.6 billion in the simulated year 1900 to over 5 billion in the simulated year 1990 and over 6 billion in the year 2000. Total industrial output expands by a factor of 20 between 1900 and 1990. Between 1900 and 1990 only 20% of the earth's total stock of nonrenewable resources is used; 80% of these resources remain in 1990. Pollution in that simulated year has just begun to rise noticeably. Average consumer goods per capita in 1990 is at a value of 1968-$260 per person per year—a useful number to remember for comparison in future runs. Life expectancy is increasing, services and goods per capita are increasing, food production is increasing. But major changes are just ahead.

"In this scenario the growth of the economy stops and reverses because of a combination of limits. Just after the simulated year 2000 pollution rises high enough to begin to affect seriously the fertility of the land. (This could happen in the 'real world' through contamination by heavy metals or persistent chemicals, through climate change, or through increased levels of ultraviolet radiation from a diminished ozone layer.) Land fertility has declined a total of only 5% between 1970 and 2000, but it is degrading at 4.5% per year in 2010 and 12% per year in 2040. At the same time land erosion increases. Total food production begins to fall after 2015. That causes the economy to shift more investment into the agriculture sector to maintain output. But agriculture has to compete for investment with a resource sector that is also beginning to sense some limits.

"In 1990 the nonrenewable resources remaining in the ground would have lasted 110 years at the 1990 consumption rates. No serious resource limits were in evidence. But by 2020 the remaining resources constituted only a 30-year supply. Why did this shortage arise so fast? Because exponential growth increases consumption and lowers resources. Between 1990 and 2020 population increases by 50% and industrial output grows by 85%. The nonrenewable resource use rate doubles. During the first two decades of the simulated twenty-first century, the rising population and industrial plant in Scenario 1 use as many nonrenewable resources as the global economy used in the entire century before. So many resources are used that much more capital and energy are required to find, extract, and refine what remains."

MORE.....

[Media_Lies_Daily]

9. The numbers presented in that article are WAY too low......

The usual number used to determine the lethality of any future influenza pandemic has been an average mortality of the last three pandemics of 1918, 1957, and 1968. The 1968 pandemic was actually less lethal than the CDC's future best case scenario, while the 1918 pandemic was far more lethal than the CDC's future worst case scenario.

The 1918 pandemic probably killed between 50 and 100 million people worldwide. Hospitals around the world kept track of the numbers of the dead until they, too, were overwhelmed and forced to close their doors. How many people died in their own homes or in places too remote to be properly investigated is anyone's guess. At the height of the pandemic in the US, mass graves were being used with great regularity, and priests...I kid you not...were riding the streets of Philadelphia with horses and wagons asking people to bring out their dead. New York City stopped counting the dead at about 33,000 when the pandemic was not even half over. Every major city in the US was affected by the pandemic at about the same rate.

If you use 5% (and it may very well have been higher) as the lethality rate in 1918-1919, then to kill 50 million people, 1 billion people would have to be infected. Likewise, to kill 100 million, close to 2 billion would have to be infected.

Since the world's population in 1918 was approximately 1.8 billion, it is reasonable to assume that to kill 100 million, the lethality rate would have to have been higher than originally assumed...somewhere in the 10% range...or the number of dead considerably lower.

If we split the difference, and postulate that the lethality rate of the 1918 pandemic was roughly 7%, and that approximately 75 million died, then one could also assume that approximately 1.1 billion were infected out of a total population of 1.8 billion (1.1 billion divided by 1.8 billion = 61%). Using those same numbers, the US with a population of about 100 million in 1918, would have lost more than 4 million people.

Now, let's apply those same numbers to the US population today, which is a little less than 300 million. 61% of 300 million is 183 million infected patients. Using a 7% rate of death, 12,810,000 would die in this country alone.

Worldwide, using 6.5 billion as the world's current population, 3.97 billion would be infected, and approximately 278 million would die. Even a lethality rate of 3.5%, half the number I'm using in this post, would result in almost 140 million dead worldwide, and and more than 6 million dead in the US.

Are the numbers I'm using too high? I REALLY do hope so. But keep this in mind...we currently have NO vaccine for use against H5N1, our medical personnel have not been trained on what to expect or how to react, and our fearless leaders may not even be able to SPELL pandemic, much less understand what to do if a pandemic struck tomorrow. I'd also be willing to say that most of our citizens have no clue that a pandemic might be imminent, much less what they need to be doing to get ready for one.

To be completely honest, I haven't a clue as to why the numbers proposed by the CDC are so low. It makes absolutely no sense unless they're trying to keep the general population from going into a premature state of panic.

And what of countries with little or no healthcare system? What will be the rate of infection for them, and what lethality rate can they expect?

[Dogmudgeon]

10. Imagine it worse

I contend that these new "polymorphisms" (old term: "mutants") of flu viruses are bred by larger and more concentrated populations of humans, and of animals raised in factory farms (specifically, poultry). So the process of making new, increasingly lethal viruses is itself sped up.

Now, imagine a scenario of five or eight or twelve flu epidemics happening one right after the next. In a population debilitated by previous flu infections and the privations of living in a society in a state of panic, resistance would be low and lethality would increase, not decrease, as the diseases spread through the population.

What can we do? Promote better public health and basic research in virology. A lucky rabbit's foot might also come in handy.

Of course, some wild-eyed conspiracy theory types say that a series of population-decreasing epidemics has been planned ... but that's just nonsense. Right?

--p!

[htuttle]

11. More than 36,000 Americans already die of influenza every year

http://www.cdc.gov/od/oc/media/pressrel/r030107.htm

If 'terrorists' killed 36,000 Americans every year, would we care enough to institute universal health coverage? They killed only 3,000 on 9/11 (1/10 the number of Americans that die of the flu), and so-called 'war on terror' has cost a LOT more so far than universal health coverage would.

Most people that die of the flu in the US are neither rich nor famous, however. And there's no rubble pile to stand on and give a rousing speech...

[Media_Lies_Daily]

12. We're not talking about 36,000...we're talking a minimum of 500,000.