By Julie Stachowiak, PhD
Multiple Sclerosis Guide; Guest blogger
Although it was less than a month ago (October 23rd, to be exact) that the US mortality from H1N1 (swine flu) was reported to have hit 1000, it looks like the numbers are actually much worse than originally thought.
As of November 12th, there have been an estimated 3,900 US deaths from April to October, including more than 500 children.
The big picture shows that an estimated 22 million Americans have had H1N1, with 98,000 of them requiring hospitalization. Eight million of the total number are children, 36,000 of whom were hospitalized and 540 who died from H1N1 complications.
This makes a little more sense to me, as it seemed like the previous numbers were awfully low, considering that most people I talked to knew someone who had been hospitalized, and there were starting to be quite a few local news reports of a death here and there, as well as "friends of friend's kids' schoolmates." The previous estimate was not a conspiracy or a deliberate oversight, rather, the CDC is trying to be scientific and accurate in its reporting and that simply takes time.
