How many is thousands and thousands ?So far I think the chances of tens of thousands of deaths in London due to swine flu is low.Say London has a population of 7 million.Say 10% get swine flu = 700,000Say 1% of those die = 7,000What is the "usual" level of mortality in London ?7 million people with life expectancy of 70 years - on average 100,000 die a year.What is curious to me is the severity of the attack has been said to pick on young adults.I also suspect severe under-reporting of the disease. I know of lots of people who have suffered " a bad cold" in the last three weeks. Were these very mild symptoms from swine flu ? The anecdote from Pulse is interesting :"Meanwhile, Dr Ellen Wright, a GP in Greenwich, south London, said she and her husband, also a GP, had been told to carry on working after their son contracted swine flu last month.‘We were told as long as you were asymptomatic you could carry on working, even if you were seeing patients,’ she said. ‘My husband developed mild symptoms but they were not enough to merit swabbing, according to the HPA algorithm.’"Of course, if the strain mutates or incorporates the nasty features of bird-flu H5N1, then the epidemic may be something else entirely.......
Tim Henderson ● 6349d