Not to cause a panic, but if that 5.5% mortality rate is for all infected -- that's more than TWICE the mortality rate for the 1918 Spanish Influenza (using the lowest estimate) and THAT flu killed somewhere between 50 to 100 MILLION worldwide between 1918 and 1920. ALSO, please note that the "human" portion of this NEW virus is identified by the SAME HN number as the SPANISH INFLUENZA -- H1N1.
A statistic that would REALLY help at this point, even if it's not as accurate as it could be would be the INFECTION rate among those exposed. IIRC 1918 Spanish INfluenza had an INFECTION rate of around 50% - again those statistics are definitely subject to the research problems coming from our scientific ability to identify and examine these things coming YEARS later. A few years ago a scientist did find a frozen sample from the lungs of a 'frozen Eskimo' IIRC, and they ARE testing those samples to learn more in case it "comes back", or something like it surfaces.
[Note: as LCS pointed out that could be hospitalized cases, etc... AND, we don't really know say over the last 2 months how many deaths attributed to pneumonia as a flu complication could've been from this NEW virus... NO-ONE not even the top researchers, and virologists, and doctors at this moment in time can HONESTLY say they have ANY reliable statistics... It's NOT POSSIBLE to HAVE even a big enough sample of known, confirmed (by a laboratory) cases to scientifically develop a statistic in any real meaningful way right now. Also, seeing as many cases have been 'mild' here in the US and elsewhere, consider how many people -- like my own family who just got over a flu -- treat it at home and DON'T visit a doctor unless there are complications (like my acute bronchitis infection, or my one daughter "re-developing" a fever with a sore throat that required a trip to test for strep which was negative.) The truth is, this could be much more widespread, and may have been around a bit longer than we know right now... Again, I've personally got that nagging feeling that whatever my family had wasn't your "normal" flu.]
I think most people know this by now (I hope), and others can explain this better than I but there are (at LEAST) 4 different markers in this virus that match genetic signatures of "lone" known viruses.
North American Swine Flu (transferrable from animal-to-human, no more dangerous than a "regular flu" and NOT transmissible from human-to-human)
Asian/European Swine Flu (this might be two different strains which would make it "3 pig flus", and not 2)
North American AVIAN Flu (never made the jump to humans before, was ONLY found AFAIK before NOW in BIRDS - ONLY)
and
HUMAN Influenza Type "A" H1N1 (the "worst" strain)
[NOTE: Last night I saw a run down of the strains present in this new virus, and that list contained like 8 different one, a couple extra "pigs" added to the above list]
I don't normally link to Wikipedia, but for some quick facts on the 1918 Spanish Flu, and various problems researchers have with mortality rates, etc... (due to WWI), it looked "pretty good" to me. LINK:
http://en.wikipedia.org
A few quotes from the page [the warning at the top of the WIKI page is good -- there are conflicting statements, but the gist of the information is "ok". The majority of these problems when researching the 1918 flu again are due to many problems due to war (disease outbreaks, close quarters of soldiers, malnutrition, etc...).
"The 1918 flu pandemic (commonly referred to as the Spanish flu) was an influenza pandemic that spread to nearly every part of the world. It was caused by an unusually virulent and deadly Influenza A virus strain of subtype H1N1. Historical and epidemiological data are inadequate to identify the geographic origin of the virus.[1] Most of its victims were healthy young adults, in contrast to most influenza outbreaks which predominantly affect juvenile, elderly, or otherwise weakened patients. The pandemic lasted from March 1918 to June 1920,[2] spreading even to the Arctic and remote Pacific islands. It is estimated that anywhere from 20 to 100 million people were killed worldwide,[3] or the approximate equivalent of one third of the population of Europe,[4][5][6] more than double the number killed in World War I.[7] This extraordinary toll resulted from the extremely high illness rate of up to 50% and the extreme severity of the symptoms, suspected to be caused by cytokine storms. The pandemic is estimated to have affected up to one billion people: half the world's population at the time.[8]"
"The global mortality rate from the 1918/1919 pandemic is not known, but is estimated at 2.5 to 5% of those who were infected died. Note this does not mean that 2.5-5% of the human population died; with 20% or more of the world population suffering from the disease to some extent, a case-fatality ratio this high would mean that about 0.5-1% ( ≈50 million) of the whole population died.[10] Influenza may have killed as many as 25 million in its first 25 weeks. Older estimates say it killed 40–50 million people[3] while current estimates say 50 million to 100 million people worldwide were killed.[11] This pandemic has been described as "the greatest medical holocaust in history" and may have killed more people than the Black Death.[12]"
I watched a very good documentary a couple years ago on the History Channel about the 1918 Pandemic, and nothing I saw on the WIKI article seemed WAY out of whack or anything like that... For those not familiar with how the 1918 Pandemic came about, how it spread etc... and for those who could read about it without panicking about THIS apparent pandemic, I would REALLY suggest they do so.
Praise GOD that we've come a LONG way since the early 1900s as far as medicine, and public health knowledge, but in all honesty we are OVERDUE for a serious pandemic already... If not this "Chimera Flu"/Mexiflu (which appears to be MAN-MADE), then it will be something else...
Again, PANIC is no good. Preparation, Education, and COMMON SENSE go a LONG way in keeping our friends, family, and neighbors safe (to the best of our ability).