The Hype About a Virus

Written by Rolf

Tuesday night my throat started to hurt when I swallowed and my head started to ache. Wednesday I had 39 degrees Celsius (102 F, converter) fever on top of that, accompanied by frequent jabbing pains in my temples.

Of course, with all the buzz about the pandemic, the first thing everyone wonders, is it Mexican? So did I. But what if it is Mexican? The media all make it sound like you would die a horrible death, but then some messages reach me that it's just another flavour of a regular flu. Should I be scared? My theory is that if things don't get worse after 2 weeks, it will get better. And if not, I can probably learn to live with it. If it is unbearable for several days in a row, I will consult a physician. I'm not sure where I got that anti-doctor trauma.

Let's do some self-diagnosis to see if I am going to die.
"The signs of infection with swine flu are similar to other forms of influenza, and include a fever, coughing, headaches, pain in the muscles or joints, sore throat, chills, fatigue and runny nose. Diarrhea, vomiting and neurological problems have also been reported in some cases."
If I understand it correctly I don't need to have all of this. I don't cough, I don't have diarrhea and I don't vomit. And at the time of writing, my fever has gone down a few degrees, too. I should be fine in a day or two, don't you agree? Thanks.

According to Wikipedia there are almost 300,000 cases of the Mexican flu and almost 3000 deaths. That's 1%. In the United States 48,000 with a death rate of over 500. But in Brazil alone, those numbers were 580 in 5200, which is 11%! Apparently a big factor is hygiene and medical facilities. The less of those, the bigger the chance you're screwed. Also, most people that die, had also some other nasty disease or conditions already, like asthma, diabetes, obesity, heart disease, or a weakened immune system, so can you really account all those deaths to the flu? In Germany, in contrast, have been almost 15,000 cases, but 0 (!) deaths. If one would die now, it would still only be 0.006%.

How can we compare this to the regular (common, seasonal) flu?
"The annual human flu in the U.S. results in approximately 36,000 deaths and more than 200,000 hospitalizations each year."
That's right. 36,000 deaths in the US alone, each year.

So, now we know this, can we please stop spreading panic about the Mexican flu?