This was sent to me by the pres. of my MoM's group. It's from the Philadelphia Inquirer. Just thought I'd pass it along for some Swine flu info for anyone else that is hesitant to get the vaccine for their kids...
By Don Sapatkin
Inquirer Staff Writer
Re: Swine Flu info (Phila. Inq. Article) -long
The article is helpful; thanks for posting.
I thought this part was kind of funny, though. If twice as many as 36,000 people get it, that would mean 72,000 could get it! Yes, 36,000 x 2 = 72,000. Big help that is. Is there some evidence they think will lead twice as many people to die? They kind of left that part out.
Thanks for sharing - good info.
This and my clicky poll yesterday helpedme decide that I am going to get the vaccine (since it was offered to me). Thanks to all who responded to that too.
No... 36000 DIE from the seasonal flu/year (not get the flu)... many more than that get it. They are just using a hypothetical that if twice as many people get theH1N1 flu this year - then there COULD be 72000 deaths... since so few people have immunity to H1N1 (but many people are already immune to the other flu strains out there b/c they are older and have been around a lot).
I see nothing funny about it. it's a hypothetical... and makes sense. No, they can't have 'evidence" but can make educated guesses based on what has happened so far.
Sorry, I meant to write: If twice as many as 36,000 people die, that would mean 72,000 could die! My point was that that statement is just an equation. 36,000 x 2 = 72,000.
I still think it's weird for them to just throw that out there. Nowhere else have they said they expect twice as many people to die. They could have just as easily said that if 25 times as many people die, then 900,000 people could die. Or that if 100 times as many people die, then 3,600,000 people could die. My nitpicky point was that the article reads like they just pulled the "twice as many" idea out of nowhere. If they have evidence to support the twice as many idea, they should have said that, but the way it reads, it seems to not necessarily follow. And I didn't mean funny like ha ha, let's make fun of people dying. I meant funny as in weird/funny. I mean, if we can't make fun of swine flu, what can we make fun of? (And I say this jokingly ... I am actually very paranoid about my girls getting swine flu.) Anyway, I should have been more precise with my language. It's been a long morning....
Thanks to the OP for the article; very helpful!