Saturday 9 January 2010

Riddle of rise in deaths

Everyone is so excited about the decline in swine flu that the astonishing jump in deaths in England last week almost went unnoticed. The weekly UK death toll jumped from 300 to 355 (most of those in England). The Times had this to say: "Sir Liam Donaldson said that this did not mean the virus was getting worse. 'I don’t think you can read into the apparently larger increase any particular trend or worsening of the situation,' he said. 'It is just that we are still continuing to see deaths broadly at the rate we have been seeing them.' He added that there had been a “striking increase” in the number of over-65s being admitted to critical care in hospital." Pensioners have traditionally been all but immune to swine flu so this is a worrying announcement. One to keep an eye on.
And having asked a couple of days ago about the cost of all the stock-piled swine flu vaccine we may not be using now, many papers today have picked up on that (well, I'm sure they'd have thought of it on their own!). The total cost of swine flu could be one billion pounds. Terrifying.

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