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The attached document is LA County's weekly surveillance. Every other week they publish page 2 of the report, which gives details. Currently, they are reporting 65 deaths, up 8 from last report (2 weeks ago). Here's an excerpt. There is a good discussion of the reliability of the rapid test. One-third of the confirmed cases yielded a prior false negative on the rapid test.
LA County does a remarkably good job with their surveillance reports - better than some states.
As of October 22, 2009 there have been 160 ICU/deaths due
to confirmed pandemic influenza A type H1N1. Of these
cases, 65 have been deaths. Since the beginning of the pandemic,
64% of hospitalized cases that were confirmed to have
H1N1 via RT-PCR had a previous rapid test. Of these, 66%
yielded a positive rapid test result while the remaining 34%
yielded a negative result. The relatively low sensitivity of the
rapid test underscores the need to treat based on clinical presentation
and not solely on the result of a rapid test. The most
frequently cited complication from H1N1 among ICU admissions
and deaths is acute respiratory distress syndrome followed
by sepsis/multi-organ failure and bacterial pneumonia
(Figure 3). Over the past few weeks, the number of ICU/
deaths seems to have increased slightly relative to August and
September (Figure 4). Since aggregate reporting began in
week 32 (August 9 - August 15), the rate of hospitalized cases
due to any influenza has increased dramatically in the past two
weeks (Table 1). For more information on testing, treating, and
preventing influenza in Los Angeles County go to: http://
publichealth.lacounty.gov/acd/h1n1.htm.
IW_week 41.pdf
LA County does a remarkably good job with their surveillance reports - better than some states.
As of October 22, 2009 there have been 160 ICU/deaths due
to confirmed pandemic influenza A type H1N1. Of these
cases, 65 have been deaths. Since the beginning of the pandemic,
64% of hospitalized cases that were confirmed to have
H1N1 via RT-PCR had a previous rapid test. Of these, 66%
yielded a positive rapid test result while the remaining 34%
yielded a negative result. The relatively low sensitivity of the
rapid test underscores the need to treat based on clinical presentation
and not solely on the result of a rapid test. The most
frequently cited complication from H1N1 among ICU admissions
and deaths is acute respiratory distress syndrome followed
by sepsis/multi-organ failure and bacterial pneumonia
(Figure 3). Over the past few weeks, the number of ICU/
deaths seems to have increased slightly relative to August and
September (Figure 4). Since aggregate reporting began in
week 32 (August 9 - August 15), the rate of hospitalized cases
due to any influenza has increased dramatically in the past two
weeks (Table 1). For more information on testing, treating, and
preventing influenza in Los Angeles County go to: http://
publichealth.lacounty.gov/acd/h1n1.htm.
IW_week 41.pdf