Is There Any Chance He Will " Man-Up" and Pay the H1N1 Wager ?

[train]

In a lame attempt to get a certain terbite to stop his mindless ranting about how H1N1 was going to be a modern day disaster I proposed a bet whereby if H1N1 deaths to Decemeber 31 were less than 1,000 he would pay $100 to a charity of my choice and if they were more I would pay the same to a charity of his choice. It was the last thing I could think of to get him to shut up and stop calling everyone who disagreed with him an idiot, or words to that effect.

Now when challenged I'm not absolutely sure if this person actually accepted the bet but it was fairly clear that he didn't change his position, and despite his claim that he never gets angry, I'm also fairly certain that CG and/or I had him hot under the collar on at least a few occasions.

The 1,000 was based on this being approximately 1/3 the number of annual deaths estimated to be caused by seasonal flu ( the head of public health in Canda estimates it to be between 2,000 and 8,000 depending on the year).

Well the results are over and the total deaths were a little over 400, so even less than I thought they would be
http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/alert-alerte/h1n1/surveillance-eng.php

So if honour is any part of his values I would request that the $100 be paid to Princess Margaret Hospital and earmarked for any of their clinical research projects.

My main objection to the over-hyping of H1N1 by the sky-is-falling zealots was the misdirecting of scarce health care resources. Due in no small part to the the media created histeria hundreds of millions of dollars ( some estimate Canada spent $1 billion) was spent in a relatively short period of time. Yes I'm sure it saved lives but maybe with a little sanity $500 million would have been enough and we wouldn't have millions of unused vaccine does left over. The other $500 million could have been spent on other deseases that cause far more deaths and suffering. Like cancer.

Some other random points to ponder:

US deaths are estimated at about 12,000 or about 1/3 of annual seasonal flu death totals. A far cry from the 30,000 to 60,000 so called "experts" told Obama it would be.
http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/estimates_2009_h1n1.htm#Table

There may be an ethnic differential with Latinos being hit harder than whites which may partially explain initial Mexican rates
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-me-h1n1-stats15-2010jan15,0,211614.story

The Globe & Mail, which was one of the papers most guilty of overhype published a news article slanted to support WHO but points out that WHO has drawn significant criticism, primarily in Europe where investigations and debate by the parlimentary assembly of the Council of Europe will begin at the end of January titled Faked Pandemics: a threat to health care.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...at-it-exaggerated-h1n1-threat/article1431667/
What seems clear that after crying wolf twice in 5 years with Avian flu and now Swine flu there is some credibility repair necessary with many.

 

[nolabel]

It might help clarify what you're asking if you were a bit more precise. 4tees is right that H1N1 measures could have proved more effective than estimated, thus accounting for the lower death rate than estimated. Why not clap rather than bemoan? But there's another point right there - are you talking prediction or estimate? They're not exactly the same thing. But even if they were, are you talking about estimates of death should no vaccination measures be implemented, or estimates of death even if they were implemented? I strongly suspect that, given the looseness in the wording of your challenge, whomever got hot under the collar with you might have got annoyed because of the lack of precision in your way of expressing estimates and results.

 

[Never Compromised]

I would much rather have the "over reacting" than have many preventable deaths. We will never know how many deaths would have happened if no action had been taken.

Another way of looking at it is that there were far fewer deaths than expected BECAUSE of the swift action taken by various governments.

 

[Cycleguy007]

Is There Any Chance He Will " Man-Up" and Pay the H1N1 Wager ?

The simple answer is no... because in HIS mind, he's ALWAYS right, and so far, he hasn't told us he's wrong so therefore he's still right.

He will simply claim (rightly or wrongly- we will never know) that the vaccine was the sole reason that this H1N1 fiasco turned out to be (mostly) a none issue.

 

[blackrock13]

Well, it wasn't me, but I can't help feeling you've fallen into a standard trap. See, if what was implemented proved to be BETTER or MORE EFFECTIVE than thought, instead of congratulating people for a job well-done, or praising a system that works, we get people who slam it for "over-reacting". For the record, I think the press hype a lot (they could over-hype a ham sandwich, and they certainly did so with Balloon Boy), and I think they hyped this. However, I think what was done worked this time and cudos all-around.

It might help clarify what you're asking if you were a bit more precise. 4tees is right that H1N1 measures could have proved more effective than estimated, thus accounting for the lower death rate than estimated. Why not clap rather than bemoan? But there's another point right there - are you talking prediction or estimate? They're not exactly the same thing. But even if they were, are you talking about estimates of death should no vaccination measures be implemented, or estimates of death even if they were implemented? I strongly suspect that, given the looseness in the wording of your challenge, whomever got hot under the collar with you might have got annoyed because of the lack of precision in your way of expressing estimates and results.

The argument of who guessed right is an interesting one.

The fact is that the numbers we Terbies came up with were for the most part just guesses, educated or otherwise, based on media reports, scientific reviews and in some cases, first hand experience or a real understanding of the mechanics of epidemics, infections, medical/research protocols and history. This is fine but in my mind the guesses as is often the case with disaster and emergency response procedures hit a real situation. If they work, often little or nothing happens and the threat gets labeled as not as severe as expected. The neigh-sayers piped up and say, 'Phsst! What was all the fuss about? No big deal.' This was the third situation in a historically short period where we've instituted our plan to fight a global medical threat and it may not have been as bad as we thought, but is that because it was no big deal or this time we responded well and had the opportunity to fine tune things in preparation for the big one. Even with H1N1, it's not over. There is expected to be a third wave in the near future. In my mind, I have no doubt there will be worse to come, probably from another direction, with international travel being what it its.

 

[blackrock13]

Is There Any Chance He Will " Man-Up" and Pay the H1N1 Wager ?

The simple answer is no... because in HIS mind, he's ALWAYS right, and so far, he hasn't told us he's wrong so therefore he's still right.

He will simply claim (rightly or wrongly- we will never know) that the vaccine was the sole reason that this H1N1 fiasco turned out to be (mostly) a none issue.

Careful CG, it wasn't an 'non-issue' to the families who lost people.

 

[Brill]

You're not sure he agreed to your wager, and now you want him to "man-up" and agree you won?

LOL

 

[Cycleguy007]

Careful CG, it wasn't an 'non-issue' to the families who lost people.

Very true BR... hence the preceding word "mostly"...

I meant no disrespect to anyone that lost a love one.

I have never said that h1N1 was not a serious disease... I simply maintain the opinion that the press has hyped it to the nth degree.

 

[fuji]

In a lame attempt to get a certain terbite to stop his mindless ranting about how H1N1 was going to be a modern day disaster I proposed a bet whereby if H1N1 deaths to Decemeber 31 were less than 1,000 he would pay $100 to a charity of my choice and if they were more I would pay the same to a charity of his choice. It was the last thing I could think of to get him to shut up and stop calling everyone who disagreed with him an idiot, or words to that effect.

I said that would be the case only if there wasn't a mass vaccination.

As it happens, we had a very successful mass vaccination, which vaccinated all the high risk people first, and effectively.

Duh.

Moreover I have not yet seen the number of estimated deaths, which is different than the laboratory confirmed cases you cite: It is always much higher. I would assume the 1000 number was exceeded by a wide margin.

 

[DistantVoyeur]

The number of H1N1 deaths will be subjective because there were people who died and had other underlying conditions.
Did they die of H1N1 or with H1N1? Was the virus the last straw or the overall causative gent?
Debate on the lethality of the virus was highly subjective until it was found that it was a highly stable virus that would not mutate after contact with other strains.
It was high transmissive but low pathogenicity.
Who won? The entire human race. If this virus had shared genetic information with H5N1 it could have decimated the human race (and I use the term correctly as in 10% kill rate)

 

[blackrock13]

Very true BR... hence the preceding word "mostly"...

I meant no disrespect to anyone that lost a love one.

I have never said that h1N1 was not a serious disease... I simply maintain the opinion that the press has hyped it to the nth degree.

Agree 100%, but some people do need a big stick to the side of the head, once and a while.

BTW, got my seasonal shot during my annual last week. Bring it on, I'm ready.

 

[5hummer]

Hey, it's still early.
A pan-epidemic can still happen if that's what you're wishing for!

 

[blackrock13]

DistantVoyeur[/U];2947090] number of H1N1 deaths will be subjective because there were people who died and had other underlying conditions.
Did they die of H1N1 or with H1N1? Was the virus the last straw or the overall causative gent?
Debate on the lethality of the virus was highly subjective until it was found that it was a highly stable virus that would not mutate after contact with other strains.
It was high transmissive but low pathogenicity.
Who won? The entire human race. If this virus had shared genetic information with H5N1 it could have decimated the human race (and I use the term correctly as in 10% kill rate)

Not quite right. Too much thinking going on here. Whether or not H1N1 was the trigger, the vector, or the sole pathogen doesn't really matter. It played a part. It did mutate especially when compare to the summer virus. Whether it mutated further will be evident when the spring arrives.

 

[DistantVoyeur]

Not quite right. Too much thinking going on here. Whether or not H1N1 was the trigger, the vector, or the sole pathogen doesn't really matter. It played a part. It did mutate especially when compare to the summer virus. Whether it mutated further will be evident when the spring arrives.

Studies were done to see if it would share info when exposed to other viruses, it did not. That is the genetic shift of viruses and the most dangerous part.
Viruses have poor DNA repair mechanisms and constantly mutate slightly during replication, that is the genetic drift and not as important to big changes in lethality but makes an effective vaccine more challenging.

You are correct in saying it was not 100% accurate but I was simplifying to get the point across.

The point of trigger or vector is valid as the people in the trigger category were susceptible to anything and could have died of seasonal flu if it had not been dominated by H1N1. It does not determine if they died because of their immunoresponse specifically to H1N1.

 

[fuji]

In a typical year there are 12.5 influenza deaths for every confirmed death. The multiplier might be lower this year because there was likely most aggressive testing, but when the statistics come out we should see a final estimated death toll between 5x and 12x the published number of confirmed deaths.

So 400 confirmed deaths represents some couple of thousand deaths depending on the size of the multiplier--the 400 being only those who died directly of influenza.

In most years influenza kills very, very few people directly. Most deaths are as a result of influenza weakening people who succumb to some other condition. That will be true this year as well, and those cases have not been counted, for the most part, in the published number.

It'll come out later on when stats can does their estimated mortality.

For the record train I did not accept your bet because you refused to modify the terms to allow for a vaccination program, something I insisted back then could stop it. You were too set on blustering back then, just as you are now, to take note of that. Given that we vaccinated 40% of the population, primarily the high risk people, we should see fewer deaths.

 

[great bear]

I had a close family member contact H1N1, and now he acts like a pig.

 

[great bear]

blah blah blah I'm never wrong blah blah blah blah....


Thats all I hear

Shieky, I stood up for you in the thread "favourite posters"!

 

[fuji]

blah blah blah I'm never wrong blah blah blah blah....


Thats all I hear

I'll let you know when I'm wrong.

 

[seth gecko]

I`ll let you know when I`m wrong.

Having made such a statement, is there anything you`d like to say in response to this, then?
https://terb.cc/vbulletin/archive/index.php/t-263994.html

I`ve said it before....you, Fuji, are an interesting fellow.

 

[tarkovsky]

When people were fighting in line to get the swine flu shot I found out my doctor was giving them so I made an appointment. This was before they were officially only going to be done in clinics and only toddlers would get tested. My doctor's office was like a war zone. It was packed with mask wearing kids and pregnant women. Screaming old people demanding they be given a shot.

At my appointment I found out my doctor was no longer able to give the shot. My usually easy going boss asked me if I had received my shot. He strongly warned me that if I had gotten it, he would have physically assaulted me because his daughter( who has athsma) wasn't young enough at the time to get it. Was the swine flu really worth all this wide spread panic?