I don't see that this study or analysis takes into account that a person with the swine flu also knows 290 people. So all 290 of them would answer yes. Multipl

I don't see that this study or analysis takes into account that a person with the swine flu also knows 290 people. So all 290 of them would answer yes. Multiplying out 290 x the 290 people those people know to give some impressive number ignores the possibility you might actually need to be dividing. My math and probability analysis may be dodgy, but I hope my point is made: simply knowing how many people know someone in a category doesn't give any meaningful data about how many people are in the category.