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Swine Flu: The Latest Figures

Saturday, July 11th, 2009

These are the latest Swine Flu figures, now hotwired to the Guardian’s. When they update, this’ll update automatically.


UPDATE: 6th AUG – this table keeps breaking because every time The Guardian updates it, they move the rows around! I will try to fix. UPDATE 29th Aug – OK I’ve fixed this now.
UPDATE 19th July: The Guardian have now updated their spreadsheet to include infection rate & mortality rate. Hmmmmmmm. I’m not saying anything….

 

Click around and re-order the countries by confirmed cases, infection, and mortality rates to get different perspectives on the situation.

(Apols for the crudeness of the design. I haven’t quite worked out how to edit the look and feel)

I believe just using sheer number of cases is a limited way of looking at it. Raw, the figures seem alarming. Put them in context with other countries or other figures, however, and it seems less alarming.

  • Confirmed cases have to be taken as a proportion of each country’s population size, or else it’s just a meaningless number.
  • Similarly, death rates are far more revealing when shown as a proportion of those infected
  • If you order the table by mortality rate, a very different picture emerges of the most stricken nations.

Suddenly the poorer countries leap to the top the table. Why do Argentina, Colombia and Mexico have the highest death rates?

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  • Tinco

    I think that it’s not that the countries that have better healthcare cure more people, but that they have more people reporting their illness. In countries like Japan or The Netherlands I bet everyone who felt even a little bit ill immediately went to their doctors. Giving a far more realistic view of what percentage dies from it. (and well a little surpressed because they also provide better care afterwards).

    I bet that in Brasil which has an unbelievable mortality rate (48% at the time of reading) only the people that were very ill went to their doctors or were tested for the mexican flu.

    Lesson to be learned: If you feel ill, even a little, contact your doctor, don’t make yourself a 48% case ;)

  • TMF

    i take it you haven’t figured how to fix it…

    • david

      I’m on it – I will fix it tomorrow. Thanks! David

  • Mike

    The testing has been vastly different based on the country, and I hope the tables situation gets resolved. According to the CDC, the US has had 7500 hospitalized and 477 deaths.

  • http://statistic-charts.com alex

    this is nice, but I was expecting a little more eye candy from you. I’ve seen very nice charts on this site.

    For more uptodate info on swineflu cases worldwide (on a map), you can go here.
    alex

  • Bert

    Two people died in the Netherlands. The figures seem not accurate.

    • david

      The Guardian datastore (which hosts the data) keeps changing the rows of their spreadsheet when they update. Which throws my chart out of sync.
      I’ve edited this now so it should work.

  • George

    How do some countries have over 1000% mortality rates?

    • david

      It’s because the source spreadsheet (at The Guardian Datastore) is constantly being edited. But every time they edit it, they add new rows and move stuff around. That breaks this spreadsheet. That’s why there are strange numbers here.

  • smiling gandalf

    right so what are the figures for normal flu deaths this year?
    they seem pretty amazingly low to me, more likely to be hit by a car than die of swineflu haha

  • http://jaredbroad.com Jared Broad

    Compare it to cases of Malaria or TB deaths – and infection rates. Swine flu is a blip on an enormous radar. They have a disease that threatens the west and the west goes nuts.

    Malaria kills millions, high infection rate and regularly fatal… TB worse so…

  • Bruce G.

    Errr, the tables above have been broken for some time now? Brazil shows mortality rates of over 2000% ? Any plans to fix it soon?

  • Karlis

    Wow, the stats for Canada are psycho. Someone at the Guardian is smoking crack.

  • http://grydz.com Leah Devaras

    Very informative statistics you got there… at least people will be alerted on those specific places and for them to take necessary precautions. We should also inform the readers about how to differentiate swine flu to seasonal flu and so I like to share Grydz.com. They have a side by side comparison on this matter. http://grydz.com/grid/show/srf-vs-sfg-vs-sgsfg-vs-sf-vs-more

  • Louise

    I’m a bit confused by the UK figures. I know of at least one confirmed death in my local hospital – confirmed to me personally by a doctor colleague who certified the death – and several other cases reported in the press of other victims who have died in the UK. Where are these figures from?

    I do think the alarm is unjustified though. I definately will not be having the vaccine mysefl for example. Its a risk I don’t think is worth taking for the prevalence and seriousness of the infection.

  • http://www.zoombits.co.uk/christmas-gifts gifts for her

    I find it intolerable the the gov has repeatedly suggested and ingrained in simpler minds that hand-washing (of no effect against an airborne virus), masks (virtually useless when they become moist) and the 2 vaccines (both untried, untested and both of which contain Squalene)are the only means of staying safe during this flu season.Oxygen Therapy is a proven methood of protecting your body against the invasion of Swine Flu. This is not just my opinion. This was proven as fact two weeks ago when doctors in Omaha, Nebraska saved the life of a little girl who was infected with Swine Flu.

  • Toodles

    Initially the data physicians collected from nose swab flu tests was required to be documented and sent to gov. agencies that were collecting this data.
    For the last couple of months, physicians in USA have been told to “stop reporting which patients tested positive for Seasonal Flu and which had Swine Flu”.
    AND they were told at that time to document ALL Flu as Swine Flu in their reports. Docs were given no explanations why, and were confused by the change. My sister is a physician and she thought the move to label even Seasonal Flu as Swine Flu was “strange”,.