Comments on: Swine flu in Chile – stop the hype

By: bryan

bryan — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:03:37 +0000

nice post, but it is really a big challenge for medical researcher how they handle this thread.

By: Lisa85856

Lisa85856 — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:35:42 +0000

Interesting stuff. Did you hear that there’s a new strain which is resistant to the anti-flu drugs? Tamiflu etc? Found a really good website for tracking it’s progress, seems to be updated every hour or so… http://www.swinefludeaths.co.uk.

By: André

André — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 20:52:03 +0000

hey dude, thanks for filling in the blanks.

the .77% was at the time total deaths divided by infected people. I know I exaggerated since of course swine flu is spreading and from the people infected at that time there would have still been the chance for some of them to pass away.

Nevertheless it looks like the hype was too big although of course there is a chance for the virus to mutate.

By: André

André — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 20:49:04 +0000

the numbers are completely outdated.

I applied the worldwide number of deaths to the worldwide confirmed cases to calculate the chance of dying if infected. That was the number 0.77%

In Chile we did not have a death at that time (May 22nd) and only 29 people infected. Now the number of infected is somewhere in the thousands.

By: Kadmiel

Kadmiel — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 15:04:09 +0000

you are correct it is a very remote chance of dying from the bug but are your numbers wold wide or just in chile?

By: dude

dude — Sat, 30 May 2009 17:35:46 +0000

0.000001395625% chance of dying from swine flu using the numbers you provided.

(29/16000000)*.0077

As you stated, this chance increases as the number of cases in Chile increase. Is the .77% mortality from the CDC?

By: Sara

Sara — Mon, 25 May 2009 23:06:32 +0000

LOL@ die biting your tongue. That would so happen to me.

Anyways, I agree with you. In the beginning when it was still new, I did buy into the hype a bit. However, now I’m not that worried. It is sort of weird with the mutation factor and if I get sick, does that mean I have pig DNA in my body? I don’t know. I’d just rather not get sick. Period. Swine flu or not.

By: Liz

Liz — Sat, 23 May 2009 13:00:31 +0000

Thanks for this post!!! I wish somebody in Mexico should use this perspective instead of alarming the population. Mexicans were the most affected and not precisely for the disease but for all the scare spread by the media.

By: La Gringa

La Gringa — Fri, 22 May 2009 13:50:32 +0000

Your numbers are encouraging!
I’m still looking for stats on how many people die of regular seasonal flu in Chile each year.
And thanks for turning us on to that link about the 30 Strangest Deaths (follow the biting your own tongue link). Very weird! Very Cool!