Swine flu continues its rampage – and it is not flu season yet!
“Although the media buzz has died down a bit, swine flu continues to affect thousands of people each week. As of July 2, the H1N1 virus has killed 170 people in the U.S. The CDC reports 33,000 confirmed cases of the virus have affected 53 U.S. states and territories. “
If you look at the pandemic of 1977, when H1N1 or Swine Flu re-emerged after a 20 year absence, there is no shift in age-related mortality pattern. The 1977 “pandemic” is, of course, not considered a true pandemic by experts today, for reasons that are not entierely consistent. It certainly was an antigenic shift and not an antigenic drift. As far as I have been able to follow the current events, the most significant factor seems to have been that most people, who were severely affected, were people with other medical conditions.
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