the "Who has swine flu?" thread

[Jezza]

As does my nephew. His mother's immediate response is to get him an emergency appointment at the GP surgery.

I hope she gets a fearful bollocking for deciding to ignore all the guidelines issued, which tell you specifically to not turn up at your local surgery. She felt that her offspring ought to be the exception because, quote, "it might not be swine flu".     

[MSeries]

Mrs MSeries had it while I was doing LEL. Taken Tamiflu, seems to be over it now.

[iakobski]

Compare and contrast:

From  DirectGov:

Latest news

The number of new cases of swine flu in England fell again last week. The Health Protection Agency estimates there were 4,500 new cases of swine flu in England, compared to 5,000 the week before.

Cases of swine flu have fallen in all age groups and in all regions. The disease has been generally mild in most people so far, but is proving severe in a small minority of cases.

From The FT July 20:

Some of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies are reaping billions of dollars in extra revenue amid global concern about the spread of swine flu.

One beneficiary of the fears about the pandemic has been Roche of Switzerland, which sells Tamiflu, the leading antiviral drug, and has seen a sharp rise in orders from private companies as well as governments.

A report last week from JPMorgan, the investment bank, estimated that governments had ordered nearly 600m doses of pandemic vaccine and adjuvant – a chemical that boosts its efficacy – worth $4.3bn (€3bn, £2.6bn) in sales, and there was potential for 342m more doses worth $2.6bn.

[andygates]

They both fit the epdiemiology snugly.

Any free infection in an available population follows a sigmoid curve:



The summer infection hits one subset of the general population, and it's pretty much flared out: the summer infection curve is mostly played out.  That's why the rate is slowing.

But flu likes it cool and damp.  Flu spreads a lot better when it's cool and damp: the bug survives longer, and people clump together closer for longer out of sunlight.  So all of a sudden, the available population increases massively because the environmental conditions change.

So the overall infection pattern is going to be a big sigmoid, in which the summer curve is a ripple in the bottom corner.

Questions?

[border-rider]

Just going to say the same, but not as clearly

Mrs MV and her mum have booked vaccinations.  They both have other conditions that might make it Bad so it's a fair deal.  Me, I'm not going as I figure it's mild enough and I'm healthy enough...

And I'm not exactly a key worker either.