Swine H1N1 Explosion in United States

[Siegfried X]

Devil's advocate

To be fair to the CDC though, they have said on numerous occasions that there are many more cases than their figures show, because of testing. Their weekly flu report seems to present all the data, including data showing that things are far worse than in prior years (like the "outpatient illness surveillance" chart).

CDC Weekly Flu Report

I think the government is happy that people are calming down, but most citizens don't take the flu seriously either. During the past week when I tried to bring the subject up to friends I was mostly ignored or told things like:

"It's only the flu"
"The flu is old news"

The next few weeks will be important. Most schools in the USA will be shut down by the end of next week, if they aren't already. Will that slow the flu down? Or will infections continue to increase?

[HenryN]

Re: Devil's advocate

To be fair to the CDC though, they have said on numerous occasions that there are many more cases than their figures show, because of testing. Their weekly flu report seems to present all the data, including data showing that things are far worse than in prior years (like the "outpatient illness surveillance" chart).

CDC Weekly Flu Report

I think the government is happy that people are calming down, but most citizens don't take the flu seriously either. During the past week when I tried to bring the subject up to friends I was mostly ignored or told things like:

"It's only the flu"
"The flu is old news"

The next few weeks will be important. Most schools in the USA will be shut down by the end of next week, if they aren't already. Will that slow the flu down? Or will infections continue to increase?

The weekly report IS put out by the CDC. If they tested the mild cases the exploding figures would be MUCH higher.

The virus really doesn't care about CDC press releases or weekly reports.

On THURSDAY the CDC said rates were declining in many areas. That was utter nonsense. It is the reporting that is declining (especially for schools where there are 100's of cases, but just a few , if any tests).

[Siegfried X]

NY, NY flu level far above the baseline

PDF of CDC Weekly Flu Report

The PDF version of the weekly flu report has some graphs not in the web version. It shows that even though the nation is below the "baseline" level of flu, one region is massively above it (the NY / NJ region), another is above the baseline, and two of the regions are either at or nearly at baseline. That is 4 of 10 regions.

[Siegfried X]

Activity down in 4 of 10

According to the graphs in the PDF version of the CDC's data, flu (ILI) decreased in 4 of 10 regions.

[HenryN]

Re: Activity down in 4 of 10

According to the graphs in the PDF version of the CDC's data, flu (ILI) decreased in 4 of 10 regions.

The CDC said that swine H1N1 (aka novel H1N1) was declining (while knowing that they told states to reduce testing of mild cases and limited test kits).

ILI is much broader than swine H1N1 and flu season in the US is OVER, so ILI doesn't say mich about swine H1N1. If fact usually there is no week 21 weekly report because the seasonal flu (and other ILI) are so low at this time of year.

[rikkitikkitavi]

Re: Swine H1N1 Explosion in United States

The CDC weekly flu report has two separate categories for influenza without subtypes: A (unsubtyped) 311 (15.1%), and A (could not be subtyped) 148 (7.2%). They note that the majority of the cases that could not be subtyped are novel H1N1. Does anyone know more about the unsubtyped category? Why are these samples not subtyped? How many of these are likely to be novel H1N1?

What's truly remarkable is that only 2.8% of the samples have been typed as seasonal A or B. The rest are either novel H1N1 (75.7%), unsubtypable (7.2%, most of which are novel N1N1), and unsubtyped (15.1%). That's why I'm so curious about that last category.

PS: Hi everyone! I'm new here, but have been enjoying the posts here for some time.

[Sally Furniss]

Re: Swine H1N1 Explosion in United States

Welcome rikitikitavi!

[HenryN]

Re: Swine H1N1 Explosion in United States

The CDC weekly flu report has two separate categories for influenza without subtypes: A (unsubtyped) 311 (15.1&#37, and A (could not be subtyped) 148 (7.2%). They note that the majority of the cases that could not be subtyped are novel H1N1. Does anyone know more about the unsubtyped category? Why are these samples not subtyped? How many of these are likely to be novel H1N1?

What's truly remarkable is that only 2.8% of the samples have been typed as seasonal A or B. The rest are either novel H1N1 (75.7%), unsubtypable (7.2%, most of which are novel N1N1), and unsubtyped (15.1%). That's why I'm so curious about that last category.

PS: Hi everyone! I'm new here, but have been enjoying the posts here for some time.

Welcome rikkitikkitavi,

The flu data comes from many sources. Some labs just do an infleunza A / B test, so data from those labs is in the unsubtyped category. However, these samples represent a small percentage at this time, because the real question is whether they are swine or human.

The ratio of unsubtyped should approximate the data for the influenza A samples that are subtyped (at this time the vast majority of the unsubtyped infleunza A will also be swine H1N1).

[rikkitikkitavi]

Re: Swine H1N1 Explosion in United States

The ratio of unsubtyped should approximate the data for the influenza A samples that are subtyped (at this time the vast majority of the unsubtyped infleunza A will also be swine H1N1).

Yeah, that's what I was afraid it might be. So, really, the probability that anyone with influenza right now has H1N1 swine flu is over 96%. Anne Schuchat of the CDC wasn't kidding when she said a few days ago that "virtually all" of the flu going around was the swine flu.

I'm really surprised that this point has not been more widely disseminated. Most people seem to think that there's a lot of seasonal flu going around still, and that the swine H1N1 is a very small, even negligible, part of what's around. They're shocked when I tell them it's the predominant strain right now.

[HenryN]

Re: Swine H1N1 Explosion in United States

Yeah, that's what I was afraid it might be. So, really, the probability that anyone with influenza right now has H1N1 swine flu is over 96%. Anne Schuchat of the CDC wasn't kidding when she said a few days ago that "virtually all" of the flu going around was the swine flu.

I'm really surprised that this point has not been more widely disseminated. Most people seem to think that there's a lot of seasonal flu going around still, and that the swine H1N1 is a very small, even negligible, part of what's around. They're shocked when I tell them it's the predominant strain right now.

That is due in part because reporters think that the probable cases (influenza A positive) are seasonal flu, when they really are swine that haven't been fully confirmed.

[HenryN]

Re: Swine H1N1 Explosion in United States

Wow, hard to believe that was written just a few weeks ago, considering where we are now.

Here are swine H1N1 sequences isolated form humans in 2005 and 2007 (click on accession number on left to see detail, which shows that the sequences from 2005 and 2007 were withheld until last month, when they were deposited at Genbank).

gb|FJ986621.1| Influenza A virus (A/Ohio/02/2007(H1N1)) segme... 34.2 2.8
gb|FJ986620.1| Influenza A virus (A/Ohio/01/2007(H1N1)) segme... 34.2 2.8
gb|FJ986619.1| Influenza A virus (A/Wisconsin/87/2005(H1N1)) ... 34.2 2.8

[gsgs]

Re: Swine H1N1 Explosion in United States

deaths are going down:

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/weeklyarchives2008-2009/images/picurve21.gif

[HenryN]

Re: Swine H1N1 Explosion in United States

deaths are going down:

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/weekly.../picurve21.gif

Please. There were 7 US deaths announced on Wednesday (3 NY, MI, IL, CT, VA), 6 on Thursday (WI, CA, IL, UT, PA, AZ), and 3 yesterday (WA, TX, NY).

This thread is on SWINE flu. The seasonal flu season is OVER. Most deaths worldwide (including the US) are in the 20-65 age range.

[gsgs]

Re: Swine H1N1 Explosion in United States

revere about New York, one of the hotspots in USA:

emergency room visits are down from their peak of a week ago
Attendance rates in school were still below average although also up from last week.
All but 4 of the 50 schools that were closed are now open

[HenryN]

Re: Swine H1N1 Explosion in United States

revere about New York, one of the hotspots in USA:

emergency room visits are down from their peak of a week ago
Attendance rates in school were still below average although also up from last week.
All but 4 of the 50 schools that were closed are now open

Please. NYC is up to 590 confirmed cases (goes up each day its reported) and upstate NY is filling up fast.