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Old 11-05-2009, 03:50 PM   #1045
joe_mullen
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Join Date: Feb 2006
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jonrox View Post
But it's not as scary to the public if you know they're all 80 year olds with emphysema - and that the seasonal flu likely would have resulted in their death.

You can bet there were underlying conditions and they were likely older. Otherwise the report would have been that 4 previously healthy people with no high-risk factors died.

Don't forget that even had H1N1 not burst onto the scene, people would be dying from seasonal flu instead - we just wouldn't be hearing about it. People dying from the flu is nothing new - up to 8,000 Canadians die every year from it.
I know that it's been mentioned numerous times in this thread, but it's actually the morbidity, stress on the health care system and economic cost of people missing work that is the biggest concern. If, as estimated, 30% of the population become ill, the cost will be very significant, if not bordering on catastrophic. It costs huge amounts of money to keep people alive, have them seen in hospital/ICUs, etc.
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