Niklas' blog

I’ve just read up on the swine flu phenomenon. Every time an outbreak/hysteria like this hits the news, I shut down a little, thinking most of it’s hype. I know, when a real outbreak hits the next time around I’ll be one of the first ones dead, but until then, I feel like Flavor Flav: don’t believe the hype!

So, today there are 26-152 deaths reported surrounding this outbreak in total, world-wide. According to the almighty and always trusty source Wikipedia, the reason for the gap in numbers is because 26 is the number of “deaths with confirmed¹ presence of virus”.

Eaten something bad? Feeling a bit under the weather? You might have the swine flu! Check this little image for more on the disease you most likely don’t have.

So where has the flu hit so far, confirmed and unconfirmed reported cases alike? The below map shows the pandemic as it travels the globe, but first here’s an explanation of the colours of the markers:

Pink markers are suspect
Purple markers are confirmed or probable
Deaths lack a dot in marker
Yellow markers are negative

View H1N1 Swine Flu in a larger map

Of course people dying is tragic, and I hope no more people are afflicted by this. I just hope this dies down like the SARS “near pandemic”.

By the way, thanks to Robin I now know who’s to blame.

1. My italics.[back]