User talk:Geometer9420

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May 2009
Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia, adding content without citing a reliable source is not consistent with our policy of verifiability. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. If you are familiar with Citing sources, please take this opportunity to add references to the article. Abecedare (talk) 09:42, 16 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I could understand someone wanting to remove the prediction I inserted despsite all the hedging because the extrapolation is in fact my own (which I clearly stated in the refernces and also gave the sources for the stats I extrapolated from). However I cannot understand why you (or whoever it was) also removed the rest of the predictions section which was not mine and well referenced, leaving only the statement that by april, some experts said the swine flu virus was likely less dangerous than normal flu, which is clearly no longer very probable. Geometer9420 (talk) 09:51, 16 May 2009 (UTC)


 * See WP:CRYSTAL for the reason such predictions are unsuitable for wikipedia in general.
 * Also, please don't make changes to sourced content as you did here. If you think that the linked Nature article is wrong, discuss the issue on the talk page instead of edit-warring. Abecedare (talk) 09:57, 16 May 2009 (UTC)


 * It may well be that predictons are unsuitable, but you removed far more than my own prediction (and the rest of the text you removed certainly wasn't mine and had been standing like this for while). I wonder why you removed all the WHO statements, leaving the naive reader with nothing but an April prediction by unnamed US experts that is no longer up to date. If all predictions are unsuitable for wikipedia, you should remove that statement too. Geometer9420 (talk) 10:39, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh I see the section is back to what it was before I added and you deleted. That's better, thanks.Geometer9420 (talk) 13:17, 16 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Btw you were right that the Nature article numbers were perhaps wrong, since they are contradicted by the WHO report, which is a much more authoritative document. I have therefore reworded the related sentences in the article. Please review, and let me know if it is clear enough now. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 10:15, 16 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for that. The current version is exactly right. The nature news article (which I haven't got) as far as I know, and maybe I'm mistaken, reports on a science article (WHO sponsored, the one you used now.)(http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1176062) If Nature doubts the Science research (does it?), this should be discussed in the article. A lower transmissability than seanonal flu, as previously stated, was also contradicted by another section of the WP article which (correctly) reports that in seasonal flu, fewer family members of cases are affected that in 2009 swine flu cases. cheers to you. Geometer9420 (talk) 10:37, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

The Nature (news) article was published 6 days before the WHO Rapid Pandemic Assessment report was published in Science and is not aware of those estimates. It instead cites numbers generated by Ira Longini, an epidemiologist at the University of Washington School of Public Health in Seattle. It says: Researchers are, however, starting to work up early numbers for some other key variables of spread, including the basic reproductive rate, R0, which is the number of new cases that an infected individual will give rise to. Longini's rough preliminary estimates from field data such as a school outbreak in New York, for instance, suggest that the current R0 is about 1.4. "At this point the virus does not seem as transmissible as past pandemic strains," he says. The R0 of the 1918 pandemic has been estimated at less than four; that of seasonal influenza typically ranges from 1.5 to 3.

Longini also suggests that the generation time — the time period before an infected individual begins infecting others — is probably between 3 and 5 days, but closer to 3. The higher the R0, and the shorter the generation time, the faster and more difficult the spread is to control. I think both of us agree that these single-person rough estimates are not as authoritative as ones in the WHO RPA report (even though those themselves are preliminary), and we should not use them once we have that better source available. Thanks for pointing out this error/outdated information in the article. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 10:59, 16 May 2009 (UTC)


 * THanks for that information. Yes, I agree, especially as the newer estimates agree better with the observed easy spread at US schools.Geometer9420 (talk) 12:13, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Btw: I think the exaggerated numbers for seasonal flu here are not Longini's but the Nature journalist's. Otherwise Longini's estimate is the same as the science article/WHO data.

New Topic: Dear Abecedare, I see now that you have also deleted my "secondary outbreak in the US" section (as OR, which I have now learned means Origial research =unsourced/verified information.) I was a bit sloppy in my references there, I have now added more and more authoritative references and have corrected a statement that turned out to be misleading on second reading. I also changed the title and added further information. Before we get into another "editing war" (I'm sorry -- novice that I am, I hadn't even realized "editing conflict" could mean that someone was undoing my changes, I just thought someone had worked on another section of the article and had saved simultaneously with me and my changes hadn't been saved because of that.) I would like you to have a look at what a propose to insert, and tell me if and where you see problems. (I still think an update on the US situation is necessary.) It probably still has typos, I hope it's readable nevertheless. I will add the text after saving this.Geometer9420 (talk) 12:13, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

First attempt deleted because notes were invisible. The following has the html tags removed from the references so they show in the text.Geometer9420 (talk) 12:41, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

US Situation in May
By mid-May, the Virus appeared to be widespread and freely circulating in much of the United States. About half of all cases of influenza tested turned out to be swine flu, and in some states//sorry this should be areasGeometer9420 (talk) 13:19, 16 May 2009 (UTC)//, flu activity was reported to be as high as in peak influenza season, an unusual pattern for May. ref"The fact that novel H1N1 activity is now detected through seasonal surveillance systems is an indication that there are higher levels of influenza-like illness in the United States than is normal for this time of year. About half of all influenza viruses being detected are novel H1N1 viruses." CDC A(H1N1) update May 15th 2009; http://www.enewspf.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7538:h1n1-flu-swine-flu-cdc-update-may-14-2009&catid=88888984:swine-flu&Itemid=88889934, accessed 5-16-2009,/refref" "But what we're seeing is that there are some areas that actually have reports of the amounts of respiratory disease that are coming into their clinics that are equivalent to peak influenza season, and so that's an indicator to us that there's something going on with the amount of influenza disease out there." Dan Jernigan of the CDC in the Canadian Press, http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5iSxR2p2Bjjs0h_PBiLSrhiVOA7kg, accessed on 5-16-2009). On May 6th, US schools closed because of flu outbreaks were encouraged to re-open, as the virus was then no longer perceived as a threat by officials. ref"Schools shut by flu can reopen: Outbreak may be milder than feared", Washington Post 5-6-2009, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/05/AR2009050500719.html, acessed 5-16-2009./ref 	According to a CDC report on May 6th, the US as well as the Mexican swine flu cases show an unusually high proportion of severe illness with hospitalization in the middle age group, while seasonal flu is a problem mainly for the elderly.ref"First, the percentage of patients requiring hospitalization appears to be higher than would be expected during a typical influenza season (3). Second, the age distribution of hospitalizations for novel influenza A (H1N1) virus infection is different than that of hospitalizations for seasonal influenza, which typically occur among children aged <2 years, adults aged ≥65 years, and persons with chronic health conditions (3). In Mexico and the United States, the percentage of patients requiring hospitalization has been particularly high among persons aged 30--44 years." Quote from: Update: Novel Influenza A(H1N1) Virus Infections Worldwide, May 6, 2009, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.refBy mid-May, three schools in Queens, New York City were closed after an outbreak in one of them that caused life-threatening disease in an assistant principal. The school most affected is located within a two-mile radius of the prep school severely hit by the earlier NYC school outbreak (initiated by students returning from Mexico). According to the ill principal's wife, who is a teacher at one of the schools closed in mid-May, her principal had wanted to close her/his school as soon as a surge of flu-like illness among the students became known, but was told not to by city health officials, who said that would only cause a panic. Another of the schools was forced to stay open despite confirmed cases of swine flu among the students. refWashington Post, May 15threfrefhttp://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/05/15/2009-05-15_queens_assistant_principals_other_health_issues_preclude_treatmentswine_flu_cond.htmlrefrefNew York Daily News, http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/05/15/2009-05-15_queens_assistant_principals_other_health_issues_preclude_treatmentswine_flu_cond.html, accessed 5-16-2009/ref Geometer9420 (talk) 12:41, 16 May 2009 (UTC) Geometer9420 (talk) 12:41, 16 May 2009 (UTC) I will later copy this into the talk page of the article, where I think it belongs.Geometer9420 (talk) 12:41, 16 May 2009 (UTC)