Was H1N1 genuinely a pandemic?

Chicken Little says it was ;)

Yes, by definition a pandemic is an Epidemic over a wide geographic area and affecting a large proportion of the population and H1N1 did just that. More significantly is H1N1 was a novel virus meaning that the entire world population had little to no prior exposure to this new strain of the flu virus making it a prime candidate to sicken a large portion of the population. What this virus was lacking though was lethality. Lots of people did get sick and lots didn’t even go to the doctor to get tested so a large portion of affected people did not show up in the statistics and thusly the H1N1 pandemic of 2009 was the global pandemic that almost never was.

Pandemic, yes by definition.

But by the same token a category 1 hurricane is still a hurricane.

“The WHO said it had counted 2,837 deaths worldwide but noted that not every case was being counted any more.

The United Nations agency is closely monitoring the strain, commonly known as swine flu, but said it had not detected any mutation which might signal that it has become more deadly.

“It is not causing more severe illness than before, there have been no changes in the behavior of the virus,” WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl told a news briefing.

“We are continuing to see increased number of deaths because we are seeing many, many more cases.”

About a quarter of a million cases have been laboratory-confirmed worldwide, but this is far fewer than the true number according to the WHO which has stopped requiring its 193 member states to report individual cases.

Its previous update of August 28 showed at least 2,185 deaths, meaning an additional 652 deaths were reported in the past week.

The virus could eventually infect 2 billion people, or a third of the world’s population, according to WHO estimates.”

Reuters

@marinelife That was a pretty old article Sept. ‘09 here is the latest from WHO on H1N1….

“As of 1 August 2010, worldwide more than 214 countries and overseas territories or communities have reported laboratory confirmed cases of pandemic influenza H1N1 2009, including over 18449 deaths.”

@Cruiser Thanks for the update. That is a lot of deaths!

Pandemic yes, but the flu, a flu, is pandemic every year pretty much,

@marinelife It is and it isn’t when compared to the seasonal flu which claims an average of 36,000 people every year….in the US alone!

I heard recently H1N1 will be in the regular flu vaccine this coming flu season.

No way. Any other flu kills way more than just H1N1.

@Afos22 I don’t think pandemic has to do with how many people die. I think it is just about how many people are infected across a large geographic area. We just don’t care about a pandemic unless it is causing great injury or death. I could be wrong.

@JLeslie No, I am probably wrong. It was a pandemic. A pandemic is geographically widespread, and N1H1 was.

The bottom line is this was a pandemic and the first one of any note in over 40 years. What sets this one apart is a number of significant efforts were made that IMO made a huge impact on the spread of this virus.

One…early warning. Today we can detect and monitor the emergence and spread of viruses like never before and sound the alarm to watch out and we did with this one.

Two…anti virals. Tamilflu was very effective at stopping the spread and replication of this virus and this was a weapon we never had before.

Three…vaccine. We were able to produce and have a viable vaccine within 6 months of the emergence of this virus again unprecedented in any previous pandemic.

Good hygiene. Previous pandemics especially the big killer Spanish Flu in 1918 people just did not wash their hands and even fresh running water was a luxury many did not have so germs viruses were everywhere! Hand sanitizer was in virtually every class room, kids have had hand washing hammered into their skulls so over all we are light years from where we were even in 1969 with the Hong Kong flu pandemic which almost killed me.

Overall very difficult to make comparisons to previous pandemics.

@Cruiser My mom worked in vaccinations for the FDA for years, they have tracked flu as it spreads across the world for years and years. That is how they determine what flu strains to put in the flu shot each year; it changes every year. By the way a lot comes over on the cruise ships, Alaskan cruises. For me what separates H1N1 most from other flus is initially the stats seemed to show it was more deadly, but most significant was that the media ran wild with the story. Not after too long the stats were proving that it was not causing many more deaths than most flus, although it did seem to attack young children a little worse than other flus.

@JLeslie That is what is so insidious about pandemics they will hit the young and infirm the hardest in that little ones have little to no immunity built up from lack of exposure to new flu viruses and again as you pointed out why the young were hit particularly hard last year. The biggest concern is mutations that do occur every year and even the vaccine in place to counter the H1N1 strain that hit last year may be a near miss at best this year depending whether or not the virus has picked up a few mutations that will allow it to continue to spread. After all mutating is what viruses do best in order to survive.

@Cruiser Even still the vast majority of children who were infected with H1N1 came through fine. The media made it sound like if your kid gets it they are most likely dying, hysteria. Sure what you say is true, viruses can mutate. I am not very concerned generally speaking. When a really scary virus comes along I will be. HIV still scares the shit out of me and that one is not even airborne.

@JLeslie Again early on they just didn’t know!! They knew they had a novel virus and at the initial outbreak in Mexico, lots of people died and most were kids. So the alarm was sounded and I think everyone erred on the side of caution and it paid off in spades. Very litte acknowledgment is given to WHO and the CDC for all the years of effort and planning that went into preparing for the H5N1 bird flu that IMO tipped the scales in our favor with the resources and knowledge that were available and just waiting for the next pandemic to strike. No one I know of expected H1N1 to be that next pandemic…huge surprise across the board.

@Cruiser Oh, I am not upset at all with how WHO and the CDC handled things in terms of facts. Better to err on the side of caution. But, vaccine was rushed I bet from pressure from the public freaked out by the media coverage. When the vaccine came to market, by then we knew it was not the killer we had feared, but then they had to sell all of that vaccine that had been purchased. I do not fault the gov’t or CDC for wanting to do their best to protect the population, I appreciate the work CDC and WHO does very much, but there is a little bit of business in there too.

The media blew the whole thing way, way, WAY out of proportion….as they usually do. Early on is one thing. The media was still blowing it out of proportion and pushing the vaccines long after we all knew it wasn’t the huge scare it could have been.

It barely threatened to become one.

Yes, we got lucky.

@mattbrowne I would have to agree with you there!