Oh, bloody h-
I just lost my entire reply to this - now attempting
to reconstruct it.
> Dan Minette <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Behalf Of Deborah Harrell
> > The acting was bad, the plot had some major holes,
> > some of the science was more-than-iffy - but it
> was
> > interesting to watch, and if it made people think
> > ahead just a little bit, that might actually be
> > helpful:
> >
> http://www.webmd.com/content/article/121/114487.htm
> I didn't see the movie but did see the ABC nightline
> on the facts. I was
> also in this debate before, and have looked up some
> facts.
>
> They had some of the real life counterparts of
> people in the movie (the
> secretary of HHS and the governor of Virginia, as
> well as CDC scientists on
> Nightline. The most criticized part of the show was
> the end, when the
> second wave of the flu killed 100%. The CDC
> scientist said while nothing
> was impossible in biology, this was very very
> unlikely. That makes sense.
Even Ebola isn't that deadly.
> If such things happened once every 100,000 years,
> the odds on humans still being here would be rather
>low.
But that may be what happened to cheetahs - see *
below (and darnit I was right about the virus being
~12K years ago ). Also see **, which
I may have posted before, about a theory that a viral
infection in the Scandanavian area may have conferred
resistance to the Black Death (which may not have just
been plague bacillus), and perhaps to HIV. (I was
incorrect about that being 10K years ago; it's more
like 2500-5K years ago.)
> If the 1918 flu epidemic is the template for the
> next one, then the death
> rates are vastly overstated. In some countries, the
> death rate approached
> 10%. But, in the US it was less than 1%...0.6%
> IIRC. I'd argue that the
> state of medicine and nutrition had a lot to do with
> the difference.
>From Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Flu
"...Global mortality rate from the flu is estimated at
2.5% 5% of the human population, with 20% of the
world population suffering from the disease to some
extent. It spread across the world killing 25 million
in six months; some estimates put the total killed at
over twice that number, possibly even 100 million.
An estimated 17 million died in India, about 5% of
India's population at the time. In the Indian Army,
almost 22% of troops who caught the disease died of
it. In US, about 28% of the population suffered, and
500,000 to 675,000 died. In Britain 200,000 died; in
France more than 400,000. The death rate was
especially high for indigenous peoples; entire
villages perished in Alaska and southern Africa. In
the Fiji Islands, 14% of population died during only
two weeks, and in Western Samoa 22%. In Japan, 257,363
deaths were attributed to influenza by July 1919,
giving an estimated 0.425% mortality rate..."
>From http://www.stanford.edu/group/virus/uda/
"...The effect of the influenza epidemic was so severe
that the average life span in the US was depressed by
10 years. [I saw 12 years on another site.] The
influenza virus had a profound virulence, with a
mortality rate at 2.5% compared to the previous
influenza epidemics, which were less than 0.1%. The
death rate for 15 to 34-year-olds of influenza and
pneumonia were 20 times higher in 1918 than in
previous years (Taubenberger). People were struck with
illness on the street and died rapid deaths. One
anectode shared of 1918 was of four women playing
bridge together late into the night. Overnight, three
of the women died from influenza (Hoagg)...
"...With one-quarter of the US and one-fifth of the
world infected with the influenza, it was impossible
to escape from the illness. Even President Woodrow
Wilson suffered from the flu in early 1919 while
negotiating the crucial treaty of Versailles to end
the World War (Tice)..."
>From the CDC [detailed article; has links to most of
the footnoted articles, also lots of graphs]:
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol12no01/05-0979.htm
"...An estimated one third of the world's population
(or ≈500 million persons) were infected and had
clinically apparent illnesses (1,2) during the
19181919 influenza pandemic. The disease was
exceptionally severe. Case-fatality rates were >2.5%,
compared to <0.1% in other influenza pandemics (3,4).
Total deaths were estimated at ≈50 million (57)
and were arguably as high as 100 million (7).
The impact of this pandemic was not limited to
19181919. All influenza A pandemics since that time,
and indeed almost all cases of influenza A worldwide
(excepting human infections from avian viruses such as
H5N1 and H7N7), have been caused by descendants of the
1918 virus, including "drifted" H1N1 viruses and
reassorted H2N2 and H3N2 viruses. The latter are
composed of key genes from the 1918 virus, updated by
subsequently incorporated avian influenza genes that
code for novel surface proteins, making the 1918 virus
indeed the "mother" of all pandemics...With the
appearance of a new H2N2 pandemic stra
