There’s no way the Tracker can keep up with all the swine flu stories. As of 1 pm on the East Coast, Google News counted more than 41,000 current stories on the outbreak that WHO said Wednesday is moving toward pandemic status. The number keeps growing. Check Google News for the most current list.
What the Tracker has not yet seen is a good story explaining that we have been through several influenza pandemics since the fabled Spanish Flu of 1918-1920 and that the U.S. death rates from them have not been appreciably different from the annual flu epidemics that most of us take in stride. One reason is that many of the earlier deaths were caused by concurrent bacterial infections, and we now have antibiotics. Also, we have much better supportive care to keep victims alive while their immune systems do the detail work.
Below are a couple of closer looks at parts of the swine flu coverage.
-BR
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