Swine flu deaths rise to 17 in Bay Area | Hacker News Reader

Swine flu deaths rise to 17 in Bay Area

sfgate.com

45 pointsrahimnathwani27 comments

From a public health perspective, this kind of news story is actually very helpful. The reason is that before H1N1, one of the main reasons for young, healthy people to get the flu vaccine was to protect at-risk populations through herd immunity. That is to say, you wouldn't want to give your grandmother the flu when you went home for the holidays.

With H1N1, there is actual risk of serious illness or death for young, healthy people. Public awareness of this is key in increasing vaccination rates.

Even without H1N1, the US government is pushing flu vaccines hard for everyone [1]. Apart from a few very rare contraindications, pretty much everyone is eligible for a flu vaccine. There are essentially no serious side effects.

So, you should get your flu shot.

1: The government's goal is to have 90% of 18-64 year olds vaccinated for seasonal influenza by 2020 (http://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/topicsobjectives2020/objec...). We are a long way away from that now, with vaccination rates for the general population around 45% (http://www.cdc.gov/flu/fluvaxview/nifs-estimates-nov2013.htm).

>> Apart from a few very rare contraindications, pretty much everyone is eligible for a flu vaccine. There are essentially no serious side effects.

Too bad a large percentage of the population has been scared off from getting immunizations for various reasons, mostly spread by uninformed people on the internet or media.

Hang on, I'm in the UK and I've had flu shots, but surely these are effective only against the standard seasonal flue strain de jour, not H1N1.

At least in the United States, this year's trivalent vaccine includes a strain of H1N1.

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/season/flu-season-2013-2014.htm...

I live in the east bay and I pretty much just got over the worst cold I've ever had in my life. I haven't had a fever in years and I was stuck in bed for nearly two weeks. It's been 4 weeks now and I still am coughing but it's getting better. I don't know if it's this, but I've never had anything like it. My entire body ached and nothing helped. pseudoephedrine, nyquil, ibuprofen, ok well ibuprofen helped a tiny bit, but not enough to be functional. It was just awful. I'm going to do a better job at getting vaccinated.

If it's flu season, you can't get out of bed, and your whole body aches, it's likely the flu. The cold virus doesn't knock you out like that. Also, if your nose isn't running or stuffed, it's probably not the cold.

Sounds like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycoplasma_pneumoniae, which isn't a flu or a cold in the common sense. I had it two years ago, with exactly the same symptoms as you. A flu vaccine probably wouldn't have helped you in this case.

Edit: Better link: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000082.htm

I had this same illness (in SF). Last week around this time I was feverish, sore, and mostly incapacitated, but it broke relatively quickly for me - within two days. I didn't do anything more than my usual to treat it(keep up the vitamins, stay rested, eat and drink enough), but it was really strong and I was definitely thinking about at least taking some aspirin to get the pain down.

I'm not sure being vaccinated would have helped with this one, my parents got the seasonal flu shot and they came down with the same bug before I did.

What was the diagnosis? Did the doctor prescribe any special medicine. Did he confirm it was swine flu?

I did not go see a doctor.

Honestly, I was afraid I was going to hear that. In Europe you usually see the doctor for something as minor as a cold that persists for more than a few days. It might look as a waste, but they will catch that percentage of non-cold cold cases and prevent serious infection.

ICU doc here.

The money side is interesting too. Sorry to be a little blunt. Regular ole influenza typically kills the older and sicker; that's a cheap death because they die quickly.

H1N1 hits people our age who are generally healthy and strong. I bet on a couple of cases I have spent over $500k saving the lives of an individual h1n1 patient. They probably spent half that again in rehab--if they live. Plus, think of all disability, lack of working, etc.

Sure a bunch of things kill more people. But H1N1 really hits productive, young healthy people.

This year's "flu vaccine" does have H1N1 protection. You wouldn't drive without a seatbelt. When H1N1 is around, the flu vaccine is another "seatbelt" you need.

This article caught my eye. Just yesterday my GP in PAMF who also works at Stanford Hospital mentioned the H1N1 and how it is on the rise in the bay area attacking young folks.

Someone who never gets a flu vaccines I actually got one this time. He explained that vaccines today carry the virus protein not the actual virus and are a lot safer then before. Obviously the preservatives inside the vaccines are still debatable and the skeptics will finger point at that.

Even though there are more deaths from the standard flu in USA, it affects those with a weakened immune systems (elderly & sick). H1N1 attacks the healthy and young folks. That is more serious than a flu which prays on the weak.

How many people have died in the same timeframe in the Bay Area let's say in car accidents or in homicides?

While usually a good heuristic, such comparisons do not apply when dealing with self-replicating phenomena, like viruses and bacteria. It might be 17 now, but without proper care it could easily get to 7k or 7M.

Deaths from H1N1 tends to be treated as unique and scary, despite overall being much lower than deaths from plain old normal flu. It's hyped largely because it has higher mortality for people who are not normally in the death-from-flu demographic.

Back at my old job (doing special projects and data journalism for a small-town newspaper), I got to do week-by-week tracking of the flu season during the first year H1N1 was big in the media. Index of coverage is, surprisingly, still up and mostly works:

http://www2.ljworld.com/data/flu/

For the period we tracked (end September 2009 to end January 2010), deaths from "normal" flu outnumbered deaths from H1N1 by a factor of 33.

The demographic difference also comes through there: 14% of deaths from "normal" flu were under 65, while 80% of deaths from H1N1 were under 65.

Thank you for a very informative comment.

I didn't realize that the normal flu deaths, even when looking at the percentage of people under 65, outnumbered deaths from H1N1 by such a large factor.

Are they contagious?

I have read articles lately when modeling crime like spreading disease it predicts the real world with remarkable accuracy.

As an aside, it is H1N1 and has a broad mix of genetic material (human, pig, avian), obviously being transmitted human to human. It isn't generally called a swine flu. And I believe this year's flu shot is effective against this strain.

If a high casualty, large scale pandemic occurs (or when, as many virologists predict) it will dramatically reshape society. High density areas, large concentration workplaces, any pathogen friendly concentrations of people...society will change quickly. SARS had relatively low transmission and a small victim count, but it still caused significant way-we-work damage in the Toronto area.

Stories like this annoy me. I get why it's news, new flu strains are always a possible rerun of 1918. But still.

Tens of thousands of people die every year from flu, mostly elderly people. But now 17 mostly young people have died, it's more newsworthy.

It's kinda like they're suggesting that once you're 65, your life really doesn't matter much any more.

Yes, it's more newsworthy when a 20 year old dies than a 70 year old. Why wouldn't it be?

I don't think there's any implication that this says anything about how much we value different people's lives though.

This isn't ageism. It's simply that "dying of old age" has always meant to die from some common illness that younger people don't die from as easily.

No it's suggesting that this is NEWs. Young people don't tend to die from flu.

It depends on the virus strain, in some strains it's the young and strong who die easy due to having a stronger immune system reaction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytokine_storm

Bottomline, the only entity that can be accused of ageism here is the nature. I regret to inform everyone, but yes, biology discriminates.

There is a huge difference though, in that millions and millions of people get the flu, and very small percentage of people die. With things like bird/swine flu, a much, much higher percentage of people die.

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