Is that a lot or a little?

PAX organizers say they have confirmed nearly 100 cases of H1N1 virus infections, or swine flu, in the wake of the Seattle videogame convention, which drew approximately 75,000 gamers to the Washington State Convention and Trade Center between Sept. 4 and 6.

source

So, that’s about one tenth of one percent of the people reporting likely swine flue (H1N1). That would be a very mild flu season, but since its a weekend and not a season, it may be a large number. On the other hand, small samples are highly variable. What you’d need to do is to find ten or twenty conventions of 20 or more thousand people and count the flu cases across that sample, and from that perhaps extrapolate rates. (I’m just estimating these numbers …. my point is that I’m not convinced this is a large number.)

This is, however, the beginning of the season of school and other changes in behavior that enhance flu transmission, and we are hearing reports like this one from Pax as well as various colleges that have started to report large numbers of cases.

Well, wash your hands, get plenty of bed rest, and I’ll see you in the morning.

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In Search of Sungudogo by Greg Laden, now in Kindle or Paperback
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