The virus known as A/H1N1

Or, in the vernacular, "swine flu".

With all the hype and media attention surrounding this illness, I thought I would gather together a few resources and make sure a few facts were established.

You may have heard that the World Health Organization has "upgraded" swine flu to a Level 5 on the Pandemic Scale, "just one step below the highest level".

But what does that mean? Pandemic, oooOOOooo...

A quick Google "define" search [TIP:type define:word in the search box] reports the following as a definition of pandemic:

an epidemic that is geographically widespread

As John McCreary, editor of the nightly executive intelligence recap (NightWatch) provided by AFCEA, points out:

Pandemic is "a term of geography, not severity or lethality!!! Hmmm ... The word sounds so scary." (emphasis added)

Wait? You mean even if WHO says A/H1N1 has now reached Level 6 on the Pandemic Scale, that it doesn't mean it's more lethal? (Because that would be making an unfounded assumption, right?) Rather, it means that the pandemic level has increased - or, if you will, the geographic widespread-edness (yes, I just made that up) has increased.

Congress' personal research arm, the Congressional Research Service, provides "policy and legal analysis to committees and Members of both the House and Senate" and "objective, non-partisan assessments of legislative options for addressing the public policy problems facing the nation". Although the reports aren't "secret" or classified, they are not released to the public (unlike the GAO reports that are released to the public on its website), since "CRS lacks the 'authority to make its products available to anyone other than the Congress of the United States'". Complaining to CRS won't help; but perhaps encouraging your Congressman to make the reports available could help. However, certain services make the documents available.

On 30 April 2009, CRS released a report entitled "The 2009 H1N1 'Swine Flu' Outbreak: An Overview". GalleryWatch has the 15-page PDF available HERE. Below are a few facts I gleaned from the report that I wanted to share with you. I encourage you to read the report: find out what your Congressman (should) know(s), see the details laid out, and be educated the next time swine flu comes up around the water cooler.

• There has been no evidence to date that pigs are involved in the transmission of the virus involved in the current outbreak (but we call it swine flu...go figure)
• The President has asked for $1.5 billion "for swine flu preparedness measures"
• The FDA has approved "emergency use" for certain antivirals, follow the note in the document to see what that means for your and your family
• CDC estimates that seasonal flu (circulates each year in the winter in each hemisphere) averages 36,000 deaths per year.
  
  (the CDC confirmed only 91 cases as of 29 April 2009 in the US, with two confirmed deaths in the US. Mexico has had 29 confirmed deaths. Now, if seasonal flu kills 36,000/year, and we spread it out evenly over the 365 days of the year - that's 98.6/day. Using the 21 April date from the timeline in the CRS report, approximately 1,578 people will have died from seasonal flu in the intervening 16 days. Compared to the 1,893 confirmed cases and 31 deaths, at present, as recorded by the WHO.)
  
• Pandemic flu, because it is a novel strain that emerges and becomes pandemic (ie, geographically widespread), is often more severe than seasonal flu because there is little natural immunity (emphasis added) (So, often, but not always/guaranteed, and little, but not no, immunity.)

So, you have the facts. What do you think about swine flu? Is it getting too much attention? Should we be mindful, but not concerned? Should we all stay home and shut down schools? Should we restrict travel? Is coverage of swine flu an attempt to get our minds off the fact that the current Adminstration is spending our grandchildren into mind-boggling debt?

The comment button is below - talk amongst yourselves.

[UPDATE: CRS releases "Selected Legal Issues" regarding A/H1N1 HERE.]