The "cry wolf" score: Fluckoo 1, Biden 0
Update: I'm tempted to make the score 2 to 0 because several articles now have titles or headlines saying the Texas teacher was killed by swine flu, while in the body the article admits otherwise.
original blog:
CDC "date of onset" data shows both Mexico (upper pic) and USA (lower pic) flu epidemic cases peaked well before Biden's famous April 30 "stay out of confined spaces" remark. Not that the data was necessarily available at that point... but the data now show Biden not only overstated but was about a week or more late.
Some fear a resurgence in the next official flu season, and in southern hemisphere regions almost totally untouched so far (by today's report). Maybe some will have learned a lesson for the future. Nonetheless, score one for the conceptual terrorism cuckoo and note that US resident deaths remain at zero (the death of the teacher in Texas is not being officially attributed to the flu)
Notice that US non-confirmed cases are "probable" while Mexico's are "suspected". Also, note April 10 and 18 as turning points.
Swine flu victim a dedicated teacher
[The Texas teacher] left for maternity leave April 14 and within days was hospitalized. District personnel knew she was sick but as late as May 1 had information from the Hidalgo County Health Department that swine flu tests were negative.
original blog:
CDC "date of onset" data shows both Mexico (upper pic) and USA (lower pic) flu epidemic cases peaked well before Biden's famous April 30 "stay out of confined spaces" remark. Not that the data was necessarily available at that point... but the data now show Biden not only overstated but was about a week or more late.
Some fear a resurgence in the next official flu season, and in southern hemisphere regions almost totally untouched so far (by today's report). Maybe some will have learned a lesson for the future. Nonetheless, score one for the conceptual terrorism cuckoo and note that US resident deaths remain at zero (the death of the teacher in Texas is not being officially attributed to the flu)
Notice that US non-confirmed cases are "probable" while Mexico's are "suspected". Also, note April 10 and 18 as turning points.
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O Hooo you sure got Biden good...
Iam sure Biden will never say anything off message again.
May 7, 2009 8:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's not about Biden per se, but he did put his foot in it. If you read my first post on this topic you will see I allowed some possible credit. This post is taking that back based on the facts.
May 7, 2009 11:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here's the facts:
It's because the MSM knows the Apocalypse is coming and each one wants to get the scoop when it happens? ;)
Or is it a conspiracy, keep telling the people the sky is falling or cry wolf, wolf. Eventually the people will mock the warning or maybe start to attack the messengers.
How many times have the citizens along the East coast, been warned to evacuate, only to see the storm wasn’t as bad as projected? So maybe more and more will not heed the warnings and get out the next time?
Come to Mexico the flu wasn’t as bad as they said. Bring money of course.
Or remember the scene from Jaws, the mayor tells the sheriff the bad reports are hurting the beachfront, tourist industry. The people will go somewhere else if they hear bad reports. Maybe they won’t fly here.
Don’t tell how many close encounters planes have with birds. The people won’t fly.
Or shut up about the flu. ‘People it’s okay come back everything is just fine”.
Until the shark or more die from the flu. Unless we can find the victims and keep it quiet blame it on other causes.
Eventually people will be afraid to talk about it, for fear of being labeled. Troublemakers.
Doomsayers.
We don't want to hear bad news; we want to hear only good news. Everything in Iraq is going good; the war in Afghanistan is going as Planned. No one would dare present a less than rosy scenario. Troublemakers and there bad reports.
Quit warning everyone about the Apocalypse, it’s costing us.
No such thing as global warming, it’s only hype? Give us good news.
Polar bears are dying, shut up give us good news.
Get it! WE don’t want to hear reports true or not. Only news that won’t cost us, and we won’t get worked over by the special interest. Whose interest is in suppression of detrimental news?
May 8, 2009 2:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well eds. I'd think erring on the side of caution would be a good thing.
No?
May 7, 2009 9:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not necessarily. When conceptual terrorism strikes and the weapon is "Caution! Panic! Caution!", as in this case, mindfulness should rule over caution.
You're basically arguing the "Maybe Iraq does have WMDs and we wouldn't want the smoking gun to take the shape of a mushroom cloud" line. While this little tempest in a teapot is no invasion of Iraq, the point is the problem of manipulation of public information and sentiment by officials and media.
May 7, 2009 11:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I see your point. But in this case, they were acting on real information. People did die in Mexico, (and still are) and they weren't sure what they were dealing with.
As far as Iraq goes, it was BS from start to finish, so I don't think it's a good analogy.
Just sayin'
May 7, 2009 11:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
The mushroom cloud was the first analogy which came to mind. No other correlation to Iraq need apply!
It is interesting to remember that even smarter and probably more honest people can participate in panics...
May 8, 2009 12:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well how many lives has Biden's foot-in-mouth cost, eds? That's my disanalogy here...
May 8, 2009 7:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Cost is not measured in deaths. You're arguing the Bush line (better safe than sorry again), and thereby trying to justify conceptual terrorism, Obey. Mexico estimates a 4% hit to their economy (not from Biden's remarks alone, of course), for starters. What you need to do is try to correlate actions taken with resultant benefits/costs. Some responses are good, others not.
One can consider such events (this flu outbreak in the past tense) as having been an excuse to run preparedness drills, and then do having done so without being an alarmist or terrorist. I'm interested in what goes beyond that point and how to deal with it.
May 8, 2009 1:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you're calling it 'terrorism', do you mean it's an intentional plot to frighten for some ulterior purpose, or merely that it was an honest misjudgment of the risk/benefit...?
May 8, 2009 3:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not personalizing it to Biden, again.
In "macropolitics" (after macroeconomics) there are no real people (except symbolically), only ideas and data. The question of whether we are being manipulated by Rupert Murdoch if we watch Fox News isn't necessarily about Rupert and his personal agenda (tho' it could relate to that).
It's like algebra vs. arithmetic. It's a different order of conceptualization. Sorta like the "invisible hand" of the free market, I'm looking at "invisible forces" which work on, or against, the collective consciousness. Whether the "motive" is strictly "ulterior" or merely occult to those who only understand arithmetic, it's not necessarily obvious to all. If it's obvious to you, feel free to explain it to those of us to whom it's not entirely obvious.
I'm not saying the Biden was shorting transportation stocks that morning, and then trying to benefit by covering the shorts that afternoon after driving prices down. But people do speak of Cheney and Halliburton along similar lines, so there's at least a tenuous connection there.
May 8, 2009 4:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
I didn't have Biden necessarily in mind, either. I've journo friends who work on the WHO and it is apparently horribly corrupt. So I'm somewhat willing to believe that they'd have a reason to blow this out of proportion. (if this was in fact blown out of proportion - I have no strong opinions on what happened.)
May 8, 2009 4:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't have any specific evidence to fault the WHO or the CDC on this score. I do think the pandemic alert level isn't all that helpful but I don't believe it was set abusively.
Corruption occurs wherever "me" is less important than "us", and in other places too. And CDC et al might well have motivations to consider erring on the fright side, since their funding depends in part on their perceived value to society. But they generally understand reflexivity and blow-back so they are unlikely to overextend a lot.
The media by contrast counts on sensationalism far too much for my taste.
But again, each of those is a "personalization" of the issue. The true issue in conceptual terrorism occurs in the minds of the all of us, that is where "concept" points. When we are intimidated we are treading into this territory whether anyone in particular set out to create fear in anyone else.
May 8, 2009 5:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
'Lessons learned' = Hindsight is always 20/20???
Personally I wouldn't want to fly on a plane in a flu epidemic, and appreciate that Biden was giving his own honest- if off the official message -inexpert opinion. It did no harm except, perhaps, to airline bookings.
I noted when Diane Rheem had Dr. Besser, Acting Head CDC, Anthony Fauci, Head NIH, and (everyone's favorite) Sanjay Gupta on earlier this week, and Diane asked them if China's action last week to quarantine everyone on a flight with a passenger with H1N1, not one of the three said it was wrong, or would be a useless measure to control spread of infection. They just said following WHO recommendations is the best course.
Politics is clearly involved in their non-response but it would seem over-caution in these situations in initial stages fits the old adage, 'a stitch in time (may) save nine'.
May 7, 2009 10:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
In real estate the mantra is said to be "Location, location, location."
Here the space-time dual is "Timing, timing, timing."
Right and wrong are tough calls and almost always contingent on personal values. I think most people who traveled to China understand the quarantine as something like "the cost of doing business". But of course it's very unlikely that you will see real debate in public on TV among nominal leaders of the status quo. And holding one planeload hostage to fear is quite different from whole States or a nation.
What strikes me in the stats is the brevity of the flare-up. While I picked on Biden, it is quite possible that early measures and cautions helped shorten it from when the story was that it had 9% mortality to now when the ratio of known deaths officially attributed to this flu to total suspected/probable cases is well under 1% in Mexico and 0% in the USA.
Thanks for the comment.
May 7, 2009 11:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Biden, as he is wont to do from time to time, opened his mouth and inserted his foot.
I have more of a problem with the way the usually hysterical MSM makes every 'crisis' out to be a sign of the coming Apocalypse. Give enough monkeys enough typewriters and eventually they will type out Shakespeare. Give enough reporters enough access and eventually a politician will give them something they can get ratings with.
May 8, 2009 12:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, taking some linear "logical" extension is an attempt to absolutize the relative. Relations which are relatively true become skewed or absurd if treated as if absolutes.
A politician need not even open mouth to give "reporters" grist for their mills!
May 8, 2009 4:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
eds,
The first line of the article you cite refutes your own contention: "Colleagues of Judy Dominguez Trunnell, the first U.S. resident to die of swine flu, knew she was ill." The CDC was slow to act having been warned in early April that an outbreak was beginning in Mexico. The discrepancy between the deaths from this virus in Mexico and elsewhere is unanswered at this point, but the alarm was not unwarranted.
First, based on the numbers of deaths reported by Mexico, WHO and CDC were too conservative in their actions if anything. Now, Mexico is reporting 45 deaths with 100's whose cause of death will never be known because they were cremated and buried. It is about risk assessment and containment.
Second, this was a new strain of flu (human-swine-avian) which some believe might and still may be catastrophic. Unless you know more than Dr. Chan, head of the WHO, it could even combine with AIDS, much less a virulent flu virus (compare the more and more overlapping maps of this H1N1 and the avian H5N1 variant).
Third, there is a good chance it will transmutate into another form if it’s allowed to spread unchecked, and who knows how bad it might be? If you had only a 25% chance of getting hit by a car if you were standing in the middle of the freeway, how determined would you be to avoid standing in the middle of the freeway? Understand, you probably would not get hit, but if you did…ouch!
May 8, 2009 11:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't get your comment at all. The "first line" doesn't contradict anything I said, it's the point I'm making that the article is a lie,
"swine flu tests were negative"
from the article (and similar reports from other articles in which doctors declined to attribute the death to swine flu).
That puts the rest of your oddball comment down a notch. Then you seem to have not even looked at the two charts. The FACTS show it's not virulent and the FACTS show that mortality is under 1% of total reported cases. It's not my opinion, it's the published FACTS.
May 9, 2009 12:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
The article is obviously saying that the initial tests were wrong. From May 5th (but I believe they knew earlier: "Judy Dominguez Trunnell had initially tested negative for the disease when she was hospitalized two weeks ago. Dr. Brian Smith, the regional director of the Texas Department of State Health Services, said a more recent test came back positive Tuesday."
And I'm not now, nor have I, argued that this flu is virulent here (as I said, Mexico is still an open question). But what I have been concerned with and what the CDC and WHO have warned of is a return of this flu in a more virulent form in the fall.
No one knew how bad this would be two weeks ago (fortunately it turned out to be mild) and no one knows how bad it will be next fall (if it returns). Taking precautions to contain it is not some cuckoo, sky-is-falling, paranoid, far-fetched over-reaction. It is a legitimate defense.
May 9, 2009 12:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
reply below
May 9, 2009 4:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
browser crash wiped out longer reply, but it is interesting that the two tests contradict each other. Trunnell death "apparently not directly caused by H1N1 swine flu" and "Texas health officials stopped short of saying that swine flu caused Trunnell's death"
May 8 report says "hundreds" of new US cases per day but CDC data show only about 150 in two days incl. "probables". Illinois is now way ahead of other states. I'd like to see updates of the charts pictured in the blog.
also check out "swine flu parties"
May 9, 2009 4:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
The original test, I believe. was a test for the flu done by the state (only the CDC can do confirmation tests of this swine flu). Hidalgo Co is a tiny little place that was in over its head on this.
There are now over 2200 swine flu cases confirmed in the US. There could be five thousand tomorrow. What would that mean? Nothing. Those numbers are dependent on how many cases the CDC can test and that's all. I have not paid much attention to them. They still have a backlog of tests and I would bet that many people who get sick with this do not even go to the doctor and will never be tested.
I have seen CDC numbers announced by County Health Dept. that were bigger than the CDC numbers it was reporting the next day. The CDC's numbers are going to be only those4 it is absolutely sure of and they are not updated quickly.
There are approaching a thousand suspected cases in my county. That tells me there are at least tens or hundreds of thousands possible in the country. But it is only a regular flu in degree. I hope it doesn't spread widely down South where it will recycle back here next winter.
I can't access your link but have no doubt that people and the press (no news there) have overreacted. Now we'll see them under-reacting as people become bored with the story (if you can't panic, it's just not exciting to some people).
May 9, 2009 6:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Confirmations are showing strong negative acceleration today, suggesting that testing backlog has been largely reduced.
A third death reported in Washington.
Why would a test for flu 1) not show flu even if it doesn't show swine flu, and 2) have results be reported as NOT swine flu if the test were not designed to detect swine flu?
May 10, 2009 1:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, I just checked out the flu parties. Wow. That seems really strange but some doctors and scientists are saying the idea might not be wrong. It sounds nuts to me, as does a party to have your child contract Chickenpox. Even if it "worked" as an inoculation against future variants, you can't control it. What if someone gets sick and dies (Canada just had their first death, so like any flu, this one does kill)? I'm not going to a disease party. Not my kind of party.
May 9, 2009 6:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
"There are now over 2200 swine flu cases confirmed in the US"
Confirmations are way up!
CDC daily totals - delta:
2254 - 615
1639 - 743
896 - 254
642 - 239
403 - 127
279 - 53
226 - 66
160 - 19
141 ...
Yes, the data depend not only on actual new cases but on how many are getting tested how quickly and how long the info takes to propagate into the results we can see. Reports say that recent results reflect a backlog of tests. So I'm still looking for more of the OP data (date of onset).
At this point with at least 2250 cases (probables were running about 50% for awhile, so maybe 5K total) mortality in US residents is under 2/5000 and the "teacher" case is marginal.
Not widely reported: How many deaths or cases of other flu outbreaks (the Texas teacher's school was reportedly taking measures against some non-swine flu, for instance).
I think we have to be suspicious of the Mexico deaths which WHO now has at 42 (Friday map) and 45 by reports today. Not enough info on the Canadian death (which might be tied to the pig farm situation*).
"A quarter of the dead were obese" in Mexico.
*
May 9, 2009 8:43 PM | Reply | Permalink