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I remember the death toll for H1N1 to have been reported in the thousands when it happened but recently read that after a few years they said it was more like 1

I remember the death toll for H1N1 to have been reported in the thousands when it happened but recently read that after a few years they said it was more like 150,000. It's possible they were just reporting US deaths where the 150k number is worldwide. How come the response for H1N1 is nowhere near as intense as the response for COVID?

TwoBit 7y ago
It's possible that 150K was a number reported by somebody else, with a motivation for reporting a very high number. I'm not saying I'm convinced the number is lower, but just as much as there are entities that under-report deaths for selfish reasons, there are those that over-report them.
Waterluvian 7y ago
Based on current trends, Covid-19 is trending to be around 10x or more worse than the 150k figure. Current projections have the US alone at 100k-200k deaths. That would be why this response is more intense.
- nostromo 7y ago
  Except the high estimate for H1N1 in 2009 from the CDC is 575,000 deaths worldwide. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_swine_flu_pandemic https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_swine_flu_pandemic
  - buboard 7y ago
    > The Infectious Diseases Society of America estimated that the total number of deaths in the U.S. was 12,469
Robotbeat 7y ago
The seasonal flu is a pandemic every year and kills a similar amount of people. It’s a shame people don’t take it seriously enough to get vaccinated. H1N1 is a newer variant of seasonal flu. But it’s not nearly as lethal and it doesn’t usually leave survivors with the kind of lung damage COVID-19 does. It’s about carrying capacity of the healthcare system. Flu already strains hospitals, but COVID-19 is multiple times worse so people go without treatment because here aren’t enough beds or doctors and nurses. That’s the difference.
- jcims 7y ago
  Every time I look into the flu I'm reminded just how big of a deal it is. The 2017-2018 season was particularly bad in the US, but I don't really recall a ton of press about it. Some stats from the CDC for the US alone: “CDC estimates that the burden of illness during the 2017–2018 season was high with an estimated 45 million people getting sick with influenza, 21 million people going to a health care provider, 810,000 hospitalizations, and 61,000 deaths from influenza.” (emphasis mine) https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden-averted/2017-2018.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden-averted/2017-2018.htm Will be interesting to see what all of the social distancing/quarantine does for the flu. The map at healthweather.us has been pretty interesting to watch. Personally I think they just screwed up the 'atypical' visualization by stretching it back to March 1st rather than showing present, but if you click on any county and scroll down you will see that they are almost all below standard observed illness for this time of year. https://healthweather.us/ https://healthweather.us/
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    Cars kill almost as many people as influenza, and costs far more in marginal QALY (younger, healthier people). Flu isn't so incredible. What's insidious is that it's just not bad enough to make it worth the cost of prevention (and it's hard to prevent -- the vaccine is a luck shot every year, as flu has strains and mutates), but it's the rumble before the storm, as one of a family of viruses of varying parameters that occasionally strike far worse (every few decades). A general solution to viruses, something like gene therapy, would be a very big deal, perhaps more than cancer treatment, in eliminating perhaps the largest non-self-imposed threat to humanity. > We’ve updated our atypical Illness map to reflect the cumulative amount of atypical illnesses we’ve observed since March 1 — previously this map reflected only new atypical illness, updated daily. Whyyyy??? that's incredibly stupid way of obscuring information by multicounting, that at best adds no value because the integral of an exponential is still exponential, and at worst makes a hash of it. The only rationale I can see is to make the numbers bigger and more clickbaity.

TwoBit 7y ago

It's possible that 150K was a number reported by somebody else, with a motivation for reporting a very high number. I'm not saying I'm convinced the number is lower, but just as much as there are entities that under-report deaths for selfish reasons, there are those that over-report them.

Waterluvian 7y ago

Based on current trends, Covid-19 is trending to be around 10x or more worse than the 150k figure. Current projections have the US alone at 100k-200k deaths. That would be why this response is more intense.

nostromo 7y ago
Except the high estimate for H1N1 in 2009 from the CDC is 575,000 deaths worldwide. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_swine_flu_pandemic https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_swine_flu_pandemic
- buboard 7y ago
  > The Infectious Diseases Society of America estimated that the total number of deaths in the U.S. was 12,469

Robotbeat 7y ago

The seasonal flu is a pandemic every year and kills a similar amount of people. It’s a shame people don’t take it seriously enough to get vaccinated. H1N1 is a newer variant of seasonal flu. But it’s not nearly as lethal and it doesn’t usually leave survivors with the kind of lung damage COVID-19 does. It’s about carrying capacity of the healthcare system. Flu already strains hospitals, but COVID-19 is multiple times worse so people go without treatment because here aren’t enough beds or doctors and nurses. That’s the difference.

jcims 7y ago
Every time I look into the flu I'm reminded just how big of a deal it is. The 2017-2018 season was particularly bad in the US, but I don't really recall a ton of press about it. Some stats from the CDC for the US alone: “CDC estimates that the burden of illness during the 2017–2018 season was high with an estimated 45 million people getting sick with influenza, 21 million people going to a health care provider, 810,000 hospitalizations, and 61,000 deaths from influenza.” (emphasis mine) https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden-averted/2017-2018.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden-averted/2017-2018.htm Will be interesting to see what all of the social distancing/quarantine does for the flu. The map at healthweather.us has been pretty interesting to watch. Personally I think they just screwed up the 'atypical' visualization by stretching it back to March 1st rather than showing present, but if you click on any county and scroll down you will see that they are almost all below standard observed illness for this time of year. https://healthweather.us/ https://healthweather.us/
- lonelappde 7y ago
  Cars kill almost as many people as influenza, and costs far more in marginal QALY (younger, healthier people). Flu isn't so incredible. What's insidious is that it's just not bad enough to make it worth the cost of prevention (and it's hard to prevent -- the vaccine is a luck shot every year, as flu has strains and mutates), but it's the rumble before the storm, as one of a family of viruses of varying parameters that occasionally strike far worse (every few decades). A general solution to viruses, something like gene therapy, would be a very big deal, perhaps more than cancer treatment, in eliminating perhaps the largest non-self-imposed threat to humanity. > We’ve updated our atypical Illness map to reflect the cumulative amount of atypical illnesses we’ve observed since March 1 — previously this map reflected only new atypical illness, updated daily. Whyyyy??? that's incredibly stupid way of obscuring information by multicounting, that at best adds no value because the integral of an exponential is still exponential, and at worst makes a hash of it. The only rationale I can see is to make the numbers bigger and more clickbaity.