As the first UK rise for a while in the number of cases is announced (a fairly predictable one with the return to school) it’s worth noting this. From the Huffington Post:
2) Why are people concerned about the 2009 H1N1 pandemic?
Over the past century, three major pandemics have swept through the world and caused severe illness and death. The most devastating by far was the influenza pandemic of 1918, which killed 40-100 million people worldwide and 500-750,000 Americans at a time when the U.S. population was only about 100 million. The 1957 “Asian flu” caused about 70,000 deaths when the U.S. population was about 170 million. The last pandemic, in 1968, killed about 34,000 out of 200 million Americans.
OK, I’d like to see figures continued for other countries and so on, but one thing is worth noting. For each pandemic in the US
- In absolute numbers the most recent pandemics had far fewer deaths, and numbers of deaths between each pandemic decreased.
- In percentage terms the contrast is even starker. In 1918, between 0.5% and 0.75% of the US population died. In 1957 it was 0.04% and in 1968 it was less than 0.02%.
I don’t want to belittle the numbers of people who actually died. I do want to ask why in so much of what is said “pandemic” is assumed to imply the 1918 figures as what we can expect. Clearly there are pandemics and pandemics.
Is this an issue of “worst-case scenario” or “most exciting headline”
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The second wave of swine could have arrived in the UK, more information can be found at Swine Flu Britain
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