Swine Flu

12th May 2009: 5000, 30 countries

15th July 2009: 100,000, 124 countries

https://www.who.int/wer/2009/wer8430.pdf?ua=1 https://www.who.int/wer/2009/wer8420.pdf?ua=1

China Flu

28th Jan 2020: 4600, 14 countries

20th March 2020: 240,000, 166 countries

So less time for COVID, and more than double the cases reported. Another week of COVID to make it the same length of time as that Swine Flu stat; if it carries on like this it'll be well over 300,000 by then,

Maybe that's some other error bias in the reporting. Maybe it was far more spread. I've heard models of COVID reported being 1/6th of actual cases. However I guess the same thing happened with Swine flu - don't know.

I think the concern is about pace of spread. The death rate appears low enough, and focused mostly on sickly / elderly people, that I don't think it's particularly alarming. Spread evenly across a year or two we'd barely notice it. But if it is quick enough, then it seems like a risk.

To me that should be our number one goal at the moment - randomised testing in the population to determine how many really have it, then what models are most accurate, so we can forecast real replication rate and real hospitalisation rates.

Either numbers could be wrong. But until we know if they're wrong, we should be working to confirm them, and slowing things down until we do.