About 50 million Americans had contracted pandemic H1N1 influenza through Nov. 14, according to the newest CDC estimates meaning that about 15% of the entire country has been infected, about 1 in every 6 people.
The agency also reported that more than 200,000 people had been hospitalized and nearly 10,000 had died.
The 200,000 hospitalizations since the beginning of the pandemic seven months ago is about the same as in a usual flu season. The deaths are lower than the 35,000 associated with seasonal flu in a typical year, but the breakdown is sharply different. The 10,000 deaths include 1,100 children and 7,500 adults 18 to 64. Those figures are much higher than in a usual flu season.
In a normal flu season, there are about 1,000 deaths among Americans under 50. "But a large proportion of the 7,500 adults [who died] are under 50," he said. Hospitalizations among the younger group are also several times higher than normal. - LA Times
An August report by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology proposed a "plausible" death toll that could fall anywhere between 30,000 and 90,000. - USA Today
July: British health projection of flu deaths: 65,000
Nov: British health projection of flu deaths: 1,000
New data reveal that there were 26 deaths out of every 100,000 cases of swine flu in England (a fatality rate of 0.026%). The authors conclude that "the first influenza pandemic of the 21 st century is considerably less lethal than was feared in advance.". . . The researchers say their fatality rate estimate compares well with the other three 20 th century influenza pandemics - the rate for the 1918 Spanish flu was 2-3% and subsequent pandemics (1957-8 and 1967-8) had rates of around 0.2%. -British Medical Journal
Doses of flu vaccine available: 42,000,000
Reported adverse effects: 1700
Number of serious adverse effects: 68
Number of reported subsequent cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome: 6
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