This just shows the idiocy of the fearmongers.

EVERYONE WILL GET SWINE FLU!!!!!

No, no, I give up.. tell me.... who IS really bad at math? WHO?

real shaman: This just shows the idiocy of the fearmongers.

EVERYONE WILL GET SWINE FLU!!!!!

And 1/10000 will suffer some sort of serious consequence from it.

Of course, now that schools are starting again, I think the number of cases will explode. I can hardly think of any segment of the population exchanging body fluids with others at a higher rate than college freshmen.

Cornwell: And 1/10000 will suffer some sort of serious consequence from it.

that does not matter!!!! everyone run around waving your arms and shrieking!!!!! flu flu flu

omg!!!!!!

I hope whatever I had last month was swine flu. It was intensely painful, and I sweated so much that my entire pillow was soaked through - had to throw it out. I'd like to think that I'm good to go now, but it was probably some generic flu. If I catch another flu this year, I'll be highly annoyed.

Psh. Only freshman CS students are impressed by exponential functions.

And the vaccines aren't going to do a damn thing against the flu. Build up your immune system. Not with dead frickin vitamin supplements or shots. Do your damn homework.

I think we need some cop math for the swine flu.

Madagascar doesnt just close its ports, it burns them.

I've got "swine" flu, if you know what I mean!
Get it?
Hubba-hubba!

/huh?

notmtwain: Let's say the US has 1,000 cases now and the case load doubles every three to four days for two months. So if two months is roughly 60 days and we use four days, we would have it doubling 15 times.

That only comes to 32,768,000 or about one tenth of the US population.

So it's clearly not impossible-- just very scary. I'd start hanging out in emergency rooms now if I were you so you can pick this thing up sooner rather than later.

It would be much better to get it now than sometime late this winter when the emergency rooms have all been overflowing for weeks.

they said several months, not 2. go for 4 and look at the numbers....

notmtwain: Let's say the US has 1,000 cases now and the case load doubles every three to four days for two months. So if two months is roughly 60 days and we use four days, we would have it doubling 15 times.

That only comes to 32,768,000 or about one tenth of the US population.

And within 10 weeks it's far more than 100% of the population. EVERYBODY PANIC!!!1!

One would hope WHO is using a logistic function and not an exponential function.

I had a dream about this old black lady. She was in a rocking chair, on the front porch of a farmhouse of some kind. She seemed very nice. There was a yard, a small barn or shed, and it was all surrounded by a cornfield. There was something bad out in the cornfield. Something....evil.

In before Madagascar closes its ports.

smrtone: I had a dream about this old black lady. She was in a rocking chair, on the front porch of a farmhouse of some kind. She seemed very nice. There was a yard, a small barn or shed, and it was all surrounded by a cornfield. There was something bad out in the cornfield. Something....evil.

No, I'm sorry, I just had bad gas. It will pass.

"For the moment, swine flu is generally mild and most people recover without needing treatment. But it could have a more devastating impact in countries where populations are also fighting AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and other diseases."

You know, a good brush fire does wonders for the overall health of a forest...

J. Frank Parnell: LoneVVolf: You know, a good brush fire does wonders for the overall health of a forest...

Uh, a 'brush' fire in the forest is a forest fire, which is bad.

Nature doesn't play favorites. The trees and everything else go too. That's how she rolls.

It's better to be thought a fool than to type a hasty response and remove all doubt.

PresentCompanyExcluded: And the vaccines aren't going to do a damn thing against the flu. Build up your immune system. Not with dead frickin vitamin supplements or shots. Do your damn homework.

Doing homework will build up one's immune system?

Semi-Sane: PresentCompanyExcluded: And the vaccines aren't going to do a damn thing against the flu. Build up your immune system. Not with dead frickin vitamin supplements or shots. Do your damn homework.

Doing homework will build up one's immune system?

Wait, I thought this kind of flu incites a feedback loop in your immune system? Don't I want a compromised immune system?

But at least the kids will be alright.

/+1 for whoever made The Stand reference

notmtwain: Let's say the US has 1,000 cases now and the case load doubles every three to four days for two months. So if two months is roughly 60 days and we use four days, we would have it doubling 15 times.

That only comes to 32,768,000 or about one tenth of the US population.

So it's clearly not impossible-- just very scary. I'd start hanging out in emergency rooms now if I were you so you can pick this thing up sooner rather than later.

It would be much better to get it now than sometime late this winter when the emergency rooms have all been overflowing for weeks.

Dude, we've got ONE MILLION cases right now just in the US, so starting with 1,000 is 1,000 times too small!

(And even if we start with 1,000 cases, you took every four days (15 doublings) so that's the conservative number. Every three days would mean 20 doublings or [getting my trusty TI-85 calculator] 1,048,576,000 or 1/6th of the Earth's population.)

So, is this flu season going to be over blown by one group or another with false proof that it is both "Clear we need a single payer health care system" and "Tragic evidence that government run health care doesn't work"?

J. Frank Parnell: Fuggin Bizzy: It's better to be thought a fool than to type a hasty response and remove all doubt.

It's better to speak your mind and suffer the mockery from the peanut gallery than it is to live in fear and only repeat things others have said before you.

Fine. Whatever. Forest fires aren't just destructive, they're also beneficial.

You know when everyone got SARS, West Nile and the Bird Flu, we all laughed it off as a lucky guess...When will we start taking the WHO seriously around here?

If there was only one case on earth right now and the number of cases doubled every 4 days for 4 months, you'd have more than a billion cases. If you waited 12 more days, you'd have more cases than people on earth. If there are a million cases on earth right now (~2^20), it'd be only 52 more days until there are more cases than people on earth.

In a country that isn't in the top 25 list of population, like say, South Korea (number 27 via wikipedia) with 48.33 million people, it would only take 3 and a half months before every person in the country had it, assuming there is only ONE case in the country right now. If there 1024 (2^10), it would only take two months.

I just don't see how this quote is at all plausible, unless what they actually mean is 'over the next several months, we will see many countries go through periods where the number of cases double every 3-4 days'

/DNRTFA

I knew that Van Halen was no great shakes, but the WHO?

notmtwain: Let's say the US has 1,000 cases now and the case load doubles every three to four days for two months. So if two months is roughly 60 days and we use four days, we would have it doubling 15 times.

They said several months, not a couple of months.
Several = 3 or 4
Couple = 2

Been saying this for a couple months now . . . but math is hard for most farkers.

Actually in the US, since the beginning, and until they quit testing everyone, the number of overall cases and deaths doubled every 2 weeks.

The calculated mortality rate is between 1-3% depending on country right now. There was some speculation from the WHO that roughly 2 out of ever 5 people on the planet will come down with this. That works out to be close to 2 billion stricken. Going with the low mortality number (1%), that works out to be 20 million dead. That's the low estimate.

If it maintains that level of lethality, on on a more 'local' level - New York City is likely to see 32,000 dead this flu season. That's a lot of body bags.

MrSteve007: New York City is likely to see 32,000 dead this flu season. That's a lot of body bags.

But think of how the unemployment rate will plummet with all those jobs coming available (realizing many who die will be rather old or rather young).

smrtone: I had a dream about this old black lady. She was in a rocking chair, on the front porch of a farmhouse of some kind. She seemed very nice. There was a yard, a small barn or shed, and it was all surrounded by a cornfield. There was something bad out in the cornfield. Something....evil.

heh heh........I just got done reading that chapter in The Stand
:)

smrtone: I had a dream about this old black lady. She was in a rocking chair, on the front porch of a farmhouse of some kind. She seemed very nice. There was a yard, a small barn or shed, and it was all surrounded by a cornfield. There was something bad out in the cornfield. Something....evil.

Yeah, well I just got raped up the arse with a gun...

jev2vulcan: heh heh........I just got done reading that chapter in The Stand
:)

Awesome book. But for the love of all that you hold aloft with adoration, do NOT watch the 6 hour TV miniseries made after it. It makes the "Dreamcatcher" movie look like a shining cinematic achievement.

/King works on paper, leave it at that.

LoneVVolf: jev2vulcan: heh heh........I just got done reading that chapter in The Stand
:)

Awesome book. But for the love of all that you hold aloft with adoration, do NOT watch the 6 hour TV miniseries made after it. It makes the "Dreamcatcher" movie look like a shining cinematic achievement.

/King works on paper, leave it at that.

believe me, I wont watch it.......after what they've done to other books I've read, tv movies and mini series truely screw up most of the books....(also, if they ever had actors who could act??????)I saw the nightmare mini series of Salems Lot.... I can only imagine this nightmare it would be! Non talented actors, half the story pieced together, I'm still trying years later to empty out that nightmare, so I can read the book, also, what they did to pet cemetary was bad too!

"Not to be melodramatic, but the death rate from the 1919 flu was three percent. This flu is about on par with the spanish flu. Get your damn shot..."

No thanks. Everything that I've read tells me that the ratio of people infected versus those who are infected and die is grossly over estimated, because this swine flu is so mild that most of those infected don't even know they had a special version of the flu and didn't report their infection. In other words, this flu is no worse than any other flu.

I don't get yearly flu shots and I haven't gotten the flu since I was a kid when I got the flu after I was given a flu shot. Nearly everyone I know who gets a flu shot gets the flu every year, even if it's a mild case. And the government wants to give me 3 to 4 shots for a flu that really isn't any dangerous than any other flu, which, doing so seems to me will weaken my immune system?? Again, no thanks.

MrSteve007: Been saying this for a couple months now . . . but math is hard for most farkers.

Actually in the US, since the beginning, and until they quit testing everyone, the number of overall cases and deaths doubled every 2 weeks.

The calculated mortality rate is between 1-3% depending on country right now. There was some speculation from the WHO that roughly 2 out of ever 5 people on the planet will come down with this. That works out to be close to 2 billion stricken. Going with the low mortality number (1%), that works out to be 20 million dead. That's the low estimate.

If it maintains that level of lethality, on on a more 'local' level - New York City is likely to see 32,000 dead this flu season. That's a lot of body bags.

I agree that this thing is WAY underestimated, but your math is off.

The current mortality rate is closer to .1% than 1%. Which, assuming 2bn infected, is still pretty horrific at 2 million dead.

The big fear needs to be the hospitalization rate. We only have 900,000 hospital beds in the US total, and we are usually at about 75% capacity. If 1/3 of the US gets infected, that's over 100 million sick - if only .5% of those require hospitalization, that will equal a completely overwhelmed healthcare system.

Then you'll see mortality rates go up, not just for H1N1/09, but for many other illnesses that could be treated if beds were available.