3 ms·

Probability, not statistics. And I think this conversation has reached saturation point. Thank you for the discussion.

• tripletao 2y ago
  For completeness, my statement above that > 700k was much worse than an average season is incorrect, since it falsely implies the 700k was just from one season. The 1977-78 season did show excess mortality in some estimates, though it's not clear whether that was from the H1N1 or the co-circulating H3N2 (which was probably a minority of the infections, but a majority of the infections in older people at highest risk of death, due to their prior immunity from 1957 and earlier). Mortality in the <19 age group reached its all-time high, around 2.4x average; that's a tiny share of the total (just 234 deaths), but perhaps an interesting gauge of the H1N1 spread. Unless I'm missing something, I do believe the 700k has travelled remarkably far with remarkably weak provenance, and I appreciate the push to investigate that. Perhaps there's just no one with any incentive to correct it--for authors opposing high-risk virological research it's impressively large enough, while authors supporting such research don't wish to draw attention to this mortality at all. I don't think the exact number changes much practically, but I'd still rather not perpetuate that carelessness.