Glenn Reynolds is absolutely right: this exposition on the strategy of school closing is very useful. I recommend it.
However, I think there’s one thing that bears mentioning. At this time to the best of my knowledge outside of Mexico the mortality rate of the H1N1 virus isn’t 10% or 1% or .1% or .01%. It’s zero. Zip. Nada. Bupkis. The mortality rate during the same period for ordinary seasonal flu has been higher. Surely that must make a difference in how we react to its spread.
At any given time there are probably thousands or hundreds of thousands of unidentified generally nonlethal viruses spreading through the population. If we decided to halt their spread by quarantine, whether voluntary or mandatory, on the off chance that they’d mutate into something deadly, we’d be reduced to spending our entire lives in bed with the blankets pulled up over our heads.
You have to deal in likelihoods, though, too. We know right now that the swine flu is very highly communicable–more so than seasonal flus. So the more people it comes into contact with, the more likely a virulent mutation becomes. Better to take some ridiculous precautions now and let the thing slowly fade out and our immune systems adapt than wait for quarantining until after the mutation appears….
Exactly the opposite, Alex. It seems to less communicable than ordinary seasonal flu. And you’re ignoring the other point I made: are you advocating that we treat every disease organism, however innocuous, as though it might mutate into something deadly?
No, but a virus from a family of viruses that have a historical tendency to mutate into a more deadly form (influenza) and for which there is currently no vaccine (swine flu) is certainly worth some extra caution.
I don’t disagree with that, Alex. You’ll note that I haven’t complained about school closings, for example.
However, I think that fear-mongering by urging people to avoid subways or not go in to work is wrong. And the comments by the EU Health Commissioner (a politico rather than a scientist) about avoiding travel to the U. S. were idiotic. Spain and Canada both have as many or more confirmed cases as we do. Why no warning about Canada and Spain?
And bans on pork products like those put in place by China or culling pigs in Egypt are idiocy.
I think that public health departments should be prepared and that for ordinary people the best advice is the same as for any other flu: don’t go to work sick; don’t send your kid to school sick.
Dave,
I don’t disagree with you on any of those points.
That’s what I thought, Alex. I just wanted to clarify my position.