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Kudoe & HatTip To Poster get a grippe who posted the below at PFI

I have updated the list of children’s H1N1 deaths through Oct. 14. The current total stands at 142. The link:

http://www.singtomeohmuse.com/viewtopic.php?p=249344&highlight=#249344

I have abandoned the attempt to track the number of total H1N1 deaths. (Sorry, Eccles.) I tried to copy howmanydays’ google spreadsheet and update the total to the present, but I found that I was unable to do a computer “page search” on the result, rendering it useless. Without a reliable database, it becomes impossible to separate the new deaths from the old. (I am afraid my voluminous paper notes are no longer up to the task. And they certainly don’t do anybody else any good.) Additionally, the reports we are getting now are so spotty and contradictory as to be rendered utterly meaningless. And we have no real baseline for comparison anyway. (36,000 anyone?)

Despite my obsessive/compulsive nature, I am forced to fall back on pseudo-philosopher Jack Handey: “If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, let ‘em go, because man, they’re gone.”

Although the reports are partial for children as well, the numbers are still manageable, and we do have some real numbers for comparison:

US Annual Pediatric Influenza Deaths, 2003-2009:

2003-2004: 152 (a bad flu season, which prompted the separate reporting of pediatric deaths)
2004-2005: 39
2005-2006: 41
2006-2007: 68
2007-2008: 83
2008-2009: 68 (seasonal flu only)

According to CDC numbers, an average of 75 children have died from seasonal flu every year since the 2003-2004 flu season.
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/fluactivity.htm

While the CDC may have revised these numbers upward slightly, they still give us a basis for comparison. Even with only partial reporting we are already approaching the total for the most deadly year for children since the CDC began compiling records.

So instead of dipping into the molten lava, I will henceforth confine myself to searching under the streetlight.

http://www.tmz.com/2009/10/15/swine-flu-infiltrates-tmz/#

Swine Flu Infiltrates TMZ
Posted Oct 15th 2009 2:38PM by TMZ Staff

E.I.E.I.Oh no! A TMZ employee is down with the swine, and we think there’s a connection to a boy band and Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Chad Weiser just called with the bad news. He’s got the H1N1. And here’s where the plot thickens. Chad works in the production of TMZ TV and handled the tapes we got of Brian Littrell and Dr. Sanjay Gupta, both swine flu survivors.

No one gets out of the office all day, so it’s like a petri dish in here.

HELP!!!! And pass the Purell.