Friday, November 6, 2009

Did Swine Flu Cases Reach Their Peak?

According to CDC, weekly swine flu hospitalizations began dropping the last week of October; the death rate also dropped. UPDATE: I called CDC on Monday, November 9, to ask why this wasn't updated, as usually occurs on Fridays. I was told that 15 deaths (swine flu) and 3 deaths (non-subtyped influenza A) were reported last week and there is no number for total influenza hospitalizations yet. UPDATE November 12: Despite several calls and emails to CDC, no one I spoke with could update these numbers or explain why. However, European surveillance data for "Severe Acute Respiratory Infections" indicated cases fell last week after rising for the previous 6 weeks (figure 4). So did the percentage of swabs positive for influenza (figure 3). With luck, both North America and Europe have passed the 2009 peak.
Aggregate Hospital and Death Reporting

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Nice graph. It will be interesting to see what it is in the next few weeks. It does appear to have peaked.