Swine Flu: Don't Hit the Bunkers Just Yet

Swine flu: is it time to panic yet? Actually, it never is, and this is a particularly useless time to start running in circles, despite the apparent non-stop coverage on the cable news channels. I had some exposure to those during my recent vacation, which only confirmed the complete ban on the damned things in my own house.

I’m reminded of a line from Michael Lewis’s article on New Orleans in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He described a neighbor as suffering from a severe information handicap: his TV was on. But I can’t get all superior about the Internet, either, since Drudge and others are running piled-up red headlines in the same manner. What’s the real situation?

As far as I can make out, it’s this: over the past many weeks, about one thousand cases of influenza have been reported in Mexico, with about seventy of them fatal. Travelers returned from Mexico have shown up ill in several other locations. But none of them have died – in fact, many of them don’t seem to be all that sick, and appear to be recovering without incident. This flu seems to have spread human-to-human in Mexico, but I’m not aware of any reports of that happening in other locations yet.

And here’s what we don’t know: the number of people actually infected in Mexico is unclear and will remain so. Seventy deaths in a thousand cases of flu is a very alarming figure, and that’s what’s driving all the attention. But we don’t know if that number should really be five thousand, or even ten. And we don’t know if all of those seventy patients even had influenza (or this strain of it) at all – the great majority of them don’t appear to have been serotyped.

So no, it’s not time to sound the sirens just yet. Odds are that this will wind down, just like many other outbreaks of influenza do. But we don’t know that for sure. If I had a nonessential trip to Mexico City scheduled, I’d postpone it. (Not that I’m looking to spend a lot of time in the city in general: one factor in the apparently high fatality rate there might be the awful air quality).

One thing an outbreak like this does, though, is to remind everyone that viral epidemics are potentially a real problem. I don’t think that this one is the Pandemic We’ve Been Waiting For, but that one might well be out there, and there’s no way to know when it might appear. If and when it does, we may not have many pharmacological weapons against it, for the reasons I’ve outlined here. For now, keep an eye on whether any of the cases outside Mexico develop into anything more serious than a day or two in bed, and whether any of these transmit to people around them. And don't watch any cable news. Here's the CDC's page on the outbreak, and here's the WHO.

Comments

[Warm_Paw:]

I'm reading headlines to the effect Swine Flu is the cause for the market downturn.
Are reporter's on CRACK?!?!?
40 people infected in the US, no one has died.
Of course the largest credit crunch in history and a seven week run up in the markets, leading to a modest pullback, aren't the reasons for a red monday.
It's Swine Flu!!!!

I write down the names of the reporters who write such drivel.
Hence forward their given zero credibility.
Hack.
Probably doesn't own a share of a company and has a money market fund while their advisor gouges their profit with his fees.

Someone wake them up and inform them there's so much real news to report.

Apr 27 02:25 PM

[Andrew Butter:]

Right on

Apr 27 03:02 PM

[schlumpf:]

lol, doctor wait 5 days........
“I had a little bird,
Its name was Enza.
I opened the window
and in-flu-enza.”

Apr 27 03:13 PM

[PastTense:]

Some of you need to read up on the 1918 flu pandemic:

"The 1918 flu pandemic (commonly referred to as the Spanish flu) was an influenza pandemic that spread to nearly every part of the world. It was caused by an unusually virulent and deadly Influenza A virus strain of subtype H1N1. Historical and epidemiological data are inadequate to identify the geographic origin of the virus.[1] Most of its victims were healthy young adults, in contrast to most influenza outbreaks which predominantly affect juvenile, elderly, or otherwise weakened patients. The pandemic lasted from March 1918 to June 1920,[2] spreading even to the Arctic and remote Pacific islands. It is estimated that anywhere from 20 to 100 million people were killed worldwide,[3] or the approximate equivalent of one third of the population of Europe,[4][5][6] more than double the number killed in World War I.[7] This extraordinary toll resulted from the extremely high illness rate of up to 50% and the extreme severity of the symptoms, suspected to be caused by cytokine storms. The pandemic is estimated to have affected up to one billion people: half the world's population at the time.[8]"

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Better safe than sorry!

Apr 27 04:14 PM

[Mad Hedge F...:]

It's way overdone. A few bad tacos in Mexico, and all of a sudden the world has gone apoplectic about another Spanish flu epidemic, when 5% of the global population died, or 50 million. The State Department banned non essential travel to Mexico, cratering that economy, while the EC recommended against travel to the US. With visions of SARS in their minds, which sent markets in Asia tumbling a few years ago, traders sold off the Mexican Bolsa by 4% and the Hang Seng by 2.7%, American Airlines (AA) 10%, Carnival (CCL) 10%, and Royal Caribbean (RCL) 15%. The Mexican peso got slammed in the FX markets, and commodities tanked across the board. Tamiflu makers Gilead Sciences (GILD) and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), as well as drugstores like Rite Aid (RAD) got a nice bump. Epidemiologists say the world is long overdue for a reoccurrence of a severe pandemic, with the explosion of international trade and an exponential growth in populations. But it is highly unlikely this is the Big One. Mexico’s public health infrastructure is primitive at best, and there is no biological evidence that this is anything remotely like the H5 N1 virus that caused the 1918 epidemic. With 25 million living in Mexico City in close quarters on a former swamp and a dubious water supply, this could be anything, even just the tail end of last year’s flu season. Almost all of these viruses originate in China, where they make the leap from pigs to humans, and then globally. But, still, try and buy a face mask at Longs Drug Store today.

Apr 27 04:30 PM

[Robert Wein...:]

At this stage the author is right no target. Way overdone. I don't know this but I would guess that more people in Mexico City died last week in car crashes than the flu.

If it continues at some point we have to adjust and get ready for battening down the hatches but we are not IMHO at that point yet. With about 100 deaths so far its not even a data point out of a population of over 10 million.

Apr 27 07:47 PM

[James 2820:]

Past Tense has it right. Sure, the swine flu scare may yet prove to be another (relative) non-event. But the Rubicon of human-to-human viral transmission has apparently been crossed, unlike in earlier disease scares. That's an important distinction. In matters related to survival, the ability to make such distinctions is critical. Therefore, the proper protocol for now is to err on the side of an "abundance of caution." Of course hype is in the air. But just because the mass media is hyping something to death doesn't mean it can't kill you.

Apr 28 03:20 AM

[Moon Kil Woong:]

Sadly, the real problem is that South of the border the flu apparently was allowed to spread unchecked for a while. Also, sadly the cases weren't found and documented correctly so no one knew when it happened, how long it incubated, and what it's source was.

This just adds to the paranoia. But so far, thankfully it is treatable with existing flu medication. Looks like we will dodge this bullet.

As for trading, less than a 1% change up or down is more a blessing than a curse. I would chalk it up to regular market volatility. The talking heads just need an excuse to blame market moves again. This excuse is particularly pathetic.

If it was a real flu panic it would be a lot worse than yesterday's drop.

Apr 28 03:54 AM