Tree House Academy Posted September 7, 2009 Share Posted September 7, 2009 Out of curiousity, there is a 50% transmission rate predicted for H1N1 (or half the world population). Does that mean that the other half will be exposed but somehow NOT contract the illness? How is that possible if almost all of the under 65 crowd has never been exposed? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I talk to the trees Posted September 7, 2009 Share Posted September 7, 2009 Bump. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tree House Academy Posted September 10, 2009 Author Share Posted September 10, 2009 One more try. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mommyof4ks Posted September 10, 2009 Share Posted September 10, 2009 No clue, but bumping again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oak Knoll Mom Posted September 17, 2009 Share Posted September 17, 2009 :bigear: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hornblower Posted September 17, 2009 Share Posted September 17, 2009 The people whom it was not transmitted to didn't get it, mainly because they were not in enough close contact with infected people. If you had a simple virus with very good transmissibility and excellent transmission routes you might get a situation where each person infects five. Then each of those five infects another five & so on & so on (like that stupid old shampoo commercial. Am I dating myself?) But some viruses - notably & luckily the hemmorhagic fevers like ebola - burn too fast & burn themselves out. So there you might have an outbreak where 1 person has it, manages to infect 1 person. Maybe that person will infect another, maybe not. You might have a situation that in a case of 10 infected people, only 1 manages to pass it on. If you're looking at literature about this, what you'd be interested in is the R0 Number which is the basic reproductive number "The average number of other individuals each infected individual will infect in a population that has no immunity to the disease" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_modelling_of_infectious_disease What I've been seeing is that H1N1 is currently showing 1.3-1.5 ..... hth! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hornblower Posted September 17, 2009 Share Posted September 17, 2009 Oh & I wanted to add: Much of the modelling I've seen is assuming a 15% attack rate. But it could be higher. Or it could be lower. We just don't know. The big problems are going to be around the small percentage of those infected who develop serious illness and need oxygen support. Helen Barnswell did a piece called War against H1N1 likely to be fought in intensive care units Effect Measure has a blog post on some modelling results. The Depressing Math of Swine Flu, ICUs and Ventilators The huge variation in the model predictions are, to me, an indication that for all the fancy computers & mathematical capabilities that we have in the digitial age, it's still GIGO. Maybe even more now than before. Now the Garbage OUT can be dressed up in powerpoint and spreadsheets and made to look really fancy which really obscures the stench of the Garbage IN....... The comments in that blog post are also very interesting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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