Flu report - number of cases declining

[onimolap]

HPA weekly report issued today. The number of cases is beginning to fall. Down to 66.5 per 100,000 (from 104.8). Link here.

"Professor John Watson, head of the respiratory diseases department at the HPA, said: "Our latest flu report suggests levels of flu are declining across the UK but nonetheless flu is still circulating in the community and the message remains that people in an at-risk group should get the seasonal flu vaccine ? it?s not too late to protect yourself from flu this season".

Great! I hope people will start to calm down a bit now!

dikker - 11 deaths in 5-14 year olds and 7 in under 5s. Of course every death is tragic but out of all the thousands of children who have caught swine flu this is a tiny minority. Many of these children were immunocompromised too so the risk to healthy children is even less. Does this really warrant all the panic buying of vaccines for healthy children? How many children die every year of complications from seasonal flu? No one rushes out to get their healthy child vaccinated against that every year so IMO people are over reacting to a very very small risk simply because the media are running away with scaremongering stories.

Oops - wrong thread!

The stats are barely making it into the news today.

[cynical emoticon]

The stats don't back up the medias scaremongering that's why!

The BBC did include them but the headline highlighted the 200+ deaths making it look like there have been lots more this week even though the article goes on to explain that they are from the last few weeks.

It's now down to 40.7 per 100,000.

This week's flu report shows a further decline to below baseline (30 per 100,000) levels, and is now at 24.1, with influenza B being the dominant strain now occurring.

Weekly report shows it down to 23.6 per 100,000 - the second week below baseline rates.

This whole swine flu thing is really annoing me, its just another strain of flu they have found and because the media have gone swine flu mad so has half the county!

tell that to the parents of the 29 children under 14 that have died this winter.

No one is saying that it isn't tragic that those children died but it has been blown completely out of proportion. Do you know how many young people die from seasonal flu or bronchiolitis or asthma every year lucy? Probably not - because the media haven't reported every single case. I can tell you that it is A LOT more than 29.

I know the exact figures for this year as per the Health protection authority report of last thursday. 439 total influenza deaths, of these 362 were cofirmed H1N1, 5 were unsubtyped influenza a and 24 influenza b. Of 393 cases with age details available 13 were less than 5 years old, 16 were 5-14 years old, 283 were 15 -64 and 81 older than 64.

Yes, I presumed that's where you got your figure from. I've read it too. Do you know the figures for the other illnesses I mentioned above? My point is that while every death is tragic, swine flu is not the terrifying disease that the media would have us believe. The fatality figures are actually quite low in comparison to other diseases.