Swine flu 'plausible scenario' - 90 000 Americans may die this winter

BLOOMBERG: According to what the advisory report describes as a “plausible scenario,” 30 percent to 50 percent of the country’s population will be infected in the fall and winter. As many as 300,000 patients may be treated in hospital intensive care units, filling 50 percent to 100 percent of the available beds, and 30,000 to 90,000 people may die, the report said.
The median age of those with the pandemic virus has been 12 to 17 years, the WHO said on July 24, citing data from Canada, Chile, Japan, U.K. and the U.S.
The H1N1 strain is genetically related to the 1918 Spanish Flu strain that killed an estimated 50 million people.

SHOOT: "It's a mild flu no different to ordinary influenza. Don't panic. Repeat: Don't panic." Actually, it's different to ordinary flu in that it's a new and exotic virus that we don't have natural immunity for, in other words, it's VERY VERY serious.

clipped from www.bloomberg.com Aug. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Swine flu may infect half the U.S. population this year, hospitalize 1.8 million patients and lead to as many as 90,000 deaths, more than twice the number killed in a typical seasonal flu, White House advisers said. In a report by the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology, President Barack Obama today was urged to speed vaccine production and name a senior member of the White House staff, preferably the homeland security adviser, to take responsibility for decision-making on the pandemic. Initial doses should be accelerated to mid-September to vaccinate as many as 40 million people, the advisory group said. Peter Gross, chief medical officer at University Medical Center in Hackensack, New Jersey, said if the group’s scenario comes true, “I think every hospital in America is going to be in a crunch. We’ll be hard pressed to deal with those predictions,” he said.