Friday, 21 August 2009
Tamiflu humour
An old joke revamped for the swine flu era... Doctor: "Take this Tamiflu and your swine flu symptoms will be gone in a week. If you don't take the Tamiflu your symptoms could take seven days to disappear."
Thursday, 20 August 2009
Latest swine flu figures
The latest swine flu figures continue to show a drop in the number of new cases (but there are still new cases). In the last week there have been 11,000 confirmed new cases in England (it was 25,000 the previous week). There have been 1,793 cases confirmed in Scotland - the full report is online. Curiously the BBC news on Radio 2 talked about 54 deaths in England to date - poor old Scotland being left out again. In fact it is 59 deaths so far for the UK. The map shows the cases across Europe - it is explained fully on the website of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control but shows the UK suffering worse than any of our European neighbours. Why? There have been 73 deaths across Europe - 59 of those in the UK. The USA has reported 477 swine flu deaths. Australia has reported 128 deaths.
Wednesday, 19 August 2009
Anyone for Tamiflu?
Tamiflu gives children nightmares, Tamiflu is next to useless, Tamiflu could kill people at risk from a stroke... the bad headlines just keep coming for Tamiflu. Fortunately in the UK the swine flu scare has gone away as people set off on holiday and forget all about the nasty bug. With the first phase of the flu come and gone we can now only wait for the second phase in the autumn. By then Tamiflu will be forgotten and all the talk will be about the vaccine and how safe that is.
Tuesday, 18 August 2009
Monday, 17 August 2009
Causes of swine flu?
I found this in The Whitehaven News for 28th April 1870. It is a letter from 'Carbolic Acid' attributing an outbreak of typhoid to:
1. Overcrowding
2. Partial or total want of ventilation
3. Want of sufficient light
4. Want of cleanliness in apartments
5. Living and sleeping in the same room.
6. Almost total disuse of water-closets where placed outside the house
7. The keeping of foul utensils within doors for weeks together without emptying
8. The keeping of poultry in the house, often in bedrooms
9. Sleeping on the floors of bedrooms
10. Almost total disregard for the presence of bad smells
11. The want of changes in clothing, unfrequency of washing the clothes and skin, and its consequences
12. The use and abuse of certain kinds of drink
13. The use of bad and low-priced ood
14. The Want of sufficient food
15. Irrregular habits of body, of times of eating, and of living generally
16. Recklessness in warding off first attacks of illness
17. General and almost total ignorance of the laws of health, and superstitious and erroneous ideas respecting the origin and treatment of diseases.
18. Total disgreard for almost anything and everything but a carouse* weekly or fortnightly, oftener when convenient.
Sounds remarkably good advice for avoiding swine flu and similar in 2009.
* = drinking session
1. Overcrowding
2. Partial or total want of ventilation
3. Want of sufficient light
4. Want of cleanliness in apartments
5. Living and sleeping in the same room.
6. Almost total disuse of water-closets where placed outside the house
7. The keeping of foul utensils within doors for weeks together without emptying
8. The keeping of poultry in the house, often in bedrooms
9. Sleeping on the floors of bedrooms
10. Almost total disregard for the presence of bad smells
11. The want of changes in clothing, unfrequency of washing the clothes and skin, and its consequences
12. The use and abuse of certain kinds of drink
13. The use of bad and low-priced ood
14. The Want of sufficient food
15. Irrregular habits of body, of times of eating, and of living generally
16. Recklessness in warding off first attacks of illness
17. General and almost total ignorance of the laws of health, and superstitious and erroneous ideas respecting the origin and treatment of diseases.
18. Total disgreard for almost anything and everything but a carouse* weekly or fortnightly, oftener when convenient.
Sounds remarkably good advice for avoiding swine flu and similar in 2009.
* = drinking session
Sunday, 16 August 2009
Count me out
Journalists, by and large, don't do maths. Ask them what 40 per cent of 40 is and they won't have a clue. Ask them what the difference is between a median average and a mode average and they'll just look blankfaced. It's only when they come to fill out their expenses that they suddenly become boy geniuses about tax and compound interest. And I count myself as among those who are statistics-blind. However, I hopefully can at least ask questions and spot when some table or graph looks or smells a bit dodgy. So I'm going to start an occasional series of swine flu stats presented by journalists. And here's the first, courtesy of the BBC website...
It purports to show swine flu increases in the last week but (and it may be just me being thick) surely without any figures it's meaningless. If eight people died in China one week and 12 the next, that's a 50 per cent increase - worrying but 'only' four more people. But if 600 died one week and 900 the next, that's still a 50 per increase but now it's 300 who died in one week. So the BBC table tells us almost nothing. Or is it me?
It purports to show swine flu increases in the last week but (and it may be just me being thick) surely without any figures it's meaningless. If eight people died in China one week and 12 the next, that's a 50 per cent increase - worrying but 'only' four more people. But if 600 died one week and 900 the next, that's still a 50 per increase but now it's 300 who died in one week. So the BBC table tells us almost nothing. Or is it me?
Saturday, 15 August 2009
State of the art
Like any major event, swine flu has inspired artists to come up with some creative work. Here are just a few of the posters from zazzle.com.
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