Some officials around the world are downplaying the seriousness of the threat that the Mexican Flu possess. The President of the United States has said “It may turn out that the H1N1 runs its course like ordinary flus, in which case we will have prepared and we won’t need all these preparations.” This sounds like a statement that someone would make if they were not worried about it and not all the proper preparations will be a priority.
The mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg has described the Mexican Flu outbreak as “a relatively minor annoyance.”
When the first cases of the Mexican Flu were diagnosed the CDC were warning that this new strain had the same characteristics of the 1918 Spanish flu strain, now there are reports out of the CDC that it does not. CDC official Dr. Anne Schuchat has suggested that if a household has one infected person, only a quarter the people in that household will become infected. For not having the same traits or genetic make up as the Spanish flu, the same numbers are popping up. The Spanish flu infected a quarter of the world’s population.
What are the direct comparisons so far between the Spanish flu 1918 and the Mexican flu 2009. First both had initial outbreaks that were relatively mild and that the target group was young healthy adults. Both are of the H1N1 type A strain. Both are transmitted person to person very efficiently. Both infect a quarter of the people exposed to the virus. One alarming statistic is that the Spanish flu 1918 had a death rate of about 3%. The Mexican flu 2009 has had a death rate in Mexico of almost 10%.
This fall the world will find out if the Mexican flu 2009 is as deadly as the Spanish flu 1918. With all of the officials downplaying the seriousness of this outbreak, I hope this is not a form of population control. 6.77 billion is the present world’s population. If a quarter of the world becomes infected, that is 1.7 billion cases. 3 % death rate will be 200 million dead. A 10% death rate will be 670 million dead.
The threat from the Mexican flu 2009 is real, the world better be prepared.
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