Scott McPherson's Web Presence

A report in today's New York Times says that as many as a half-million Big Apple residents may be displaying symptoms consistent with swine H1N1 influenza.

The city has twelve reported deaths that cre confirmed swine H1 cases. Three new fatalities -- a person under 40, a person under 60, and a person over 65, brought the city's total into the double digits.

It is absolutely clear that the virus has not abated, has not gotten weaker, and if anything may be headed in a different direction. From Manitoba, Canada, and as reported by veteran flu blogger Crof (of British Columbia) on his site H5N1:

Manitoba adopts pandemic response

Via the Globe and Mail, a remarkable report:Manitoba adopts pandemic response. Excerpt:

As the World Health Organization vacillated over whether to call the flu outbreak a full-blown pandemic yesterday, Manitoba shifted to a disaster footing, warning people away from hospitals, closing some northern schools and placing more flu victims in intensive care.

The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority posted flyers throughout city hospitals asking the public to limit hospital visits and urging people with flu symptoms to stay away altogether.

Nurses and physicians within those hospitals are straining to contain a surge in severe cases of the flu that appears to be unique in the country.

Yesterday, two more flu sufferers were placed in intensive care, bringing to 27 the total number of people on respirators due to flu symptoms.

More on this in the Winnipeg Free Press. Manitoba seems to be taking H1N1 a lot more seriously than the rest of Canada is.

Manitoba is seeing something in its "surge" sufficient enough to cause the province to move quickly and forcefully.  Twenty-seven people on respirators is clearly not a good thing.  The conventional wisdom is that when a flu sufferer goes on a ventilator, recovery is far from assured. 

It is time to stop counting positive test swabs and it is time to start counting employee absenteeism and school absenteeism.  Of course, schools are closing for the summer, so we are losing one of our most critically important "sentinels."  Still, we have summer school in places where it is still funded, and colleges still have summer semesters.  This, along with workplace absenteeism, is where we will get our data on the spread of the virus and its severity.

Also, Indonesia is reporting its first round of confirmed swine flu cases, and Egypt is trying to desperately contain what it believes to be its first cases -- at the American University in Cairo.  Recall that both of these nations lead the world in human H5N1 infections, and getting reliable information out of Jakarta on flu infections is like asking North Korea for nuclear advise.