It's the story the papers don't want you to see. The real numbers.
The latest figures show the death toll has climbed to over 8,000 deaths in a very short space of time. That's right - EIGHT THOUSAND dead in Mexico alone. That's a staggering number of deaths, and it's good the world is taking notice. Be very worried.
Related Link: Death toll over 8,000
Related Link: Mexico tries to prevent growing death toll
The latest figures show the death toll has climbed to over 8,000 deaths in a very short space of time. That's right - EIGHT THOUSAND dead in Mexico alone. That's a staggering number of deaths, and it's good the world is taking notice. Be very worried.
Related Link: Death toll over 8,000
Related Link: Mexico tries to prevent growing death toll
duh.
ReplyDeleteMy 8000 Mexican's dead still trumps the media's 150 or so dead from *suspected* swine flu.
ReplyDeleteHow many people die of flu every year in Mexico anyway? There are over 100 million people living in Mexico. At the moment at least.
In spring? To a flu that almost no one has immunity to? None
ReplyDeleteNice try David. No-one has immunity (perhaps) but that still translates to an estimated 94% recovery rate (6% fatality rate) from those that do get the flu. As always, the most susceptible are often elderly and sick - which can make up a big percentage of the 6% death toll.
ReplyDeleteI doubt you could seriously argue that people do not die of influenza and related illnesses in spring, in a population sample of 110 million. Which is why the 150 or so deaths recorded in Mexico are not all going to be solely due to the Swine Flu.
The flu may turn out to be as dangerous as people fear (especially in a pandemic sense), but at the moment, there is a lot of hype and front page real estate and continual "breaking" updates and so I thought it worth noting that 8,000 die in Mexico for another specific cause, and the world barely blinks.
What do you think? Are crime related deaths not personal enough for people?
Where did you get the 94%/6% figure from? Is that for swine flu? The death rate from seasonal flu is something like 0.05% in New Zealand.
ReplyDeleteThe 6% figure was simply a "worst case scenario" quote from a newspaper trying to panic the populace, with the odd reference to the Spanish Flu and zombie movies as proof.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, an exaggerated figure that I couldn't be bothering arguing about, but happy to accept for the purposes of making my point.
Given the swine flu is supposedly highly contagious, and has now been declared "pandemic", we can assume most of Mexico has had the flue, and the death rate was probably a slight blip over the usual death rate from flu like illnesses.
And yet, the authorities will be selling us vast quantities of Tamiflu because we will supposedly die off in the millions.
Perhaps if we too eat more tacos we can resist the effects?