Swine Flu Counter update Sept 2009

Here you'll find the September 2009 update of the

Global Swine Flu Counter

Although there is still an increasing risk of underreporting, the counter has been renewed on basis of the latest available global reports as provided by Wikipedia/ECDC.

Swine Flu under Control?
The September 2009 developments suggest the Swine Flu development is under control, as the reported infections changed from a exponential growth recent months, to more linear growth in August 2009. In September the increase of infections was already declining.

New Model
The above developments are the main reason why data in the Swine Flu calculator have now been modelled by a logistic function.
Well considered curve fitting at ZunZun, showed a Gompertz function (with offset) resulted in a satisfying approximation :



Life actuaries will be familiar with good old Gompertz. The Gompertz equations are - by the way - also used to model Plant Desease Progres.

The number of death have now been modelled ruffly as 1.8% of the infected people a month earlier [Death=0.018*I(t-30)]

Results update
The results the new approximation show that the number of reported infections increases asymptotically towards a limit of about 323,000.

Correspondingly, the number of death, , increases to a limit of ruffly 6000.

All provided the actual controlled development continues and no new mutation of the H1N1 will develop in the next months.....

Risk
The risk of underreporting is not negligible . Modeling on basis of excluding the September data would result in a limit of 528,000 infects and about 9500 deaths. We'll just have to wait how H1N1 develops.....
But as becomes clear, the explosion of swine flue cases looks under control.

If necessary, the counter will be updated again on a on a regular basis. The latest data you'll find in this XLS spreadsheet.

Install Swine Flu Counter
How to implement this Swine Flu Counter on your web site?

• Put the next HTML-script (without the outer quotes) just before the end of the body tag:' <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="http://sites.google.com/site/boooming/actuary/swine-flu-2009-update1.js"> </script>'
  


• Put the next HTML-line (without the outer quotes) where you want the Swine Flu table to appear on your site :
  ' <div id="swineflutable"></div> '
  
  
• Ready!

H1N1 Swine Flu Projection

Strange... a lot of (WHO) swine flu talk and information on the Internet, but no worldwide projections or estimates....

The risk of underestimating the so called H1N1 (Swine Flu) virus is not unthinkable.

Worldwide Projection H1N1 Virus
You don't have to be an actuary or mathematician to make a sound projection of the number of people that will be infected (or die) within the next months. All it takes is 'basic high school' and a common spreadsheet.

Let's make a simple worldwide projection of the expected cases (infections) based upon the WolframAlpha data-set:



The purple line illustrates the development of the number of infections worldwide, the dotted purple line illustrates the expected projected development until the end of july 2009.

With one view it's clear is that during the next months the H1N1 virus spread will be enormous. By the end of July 2009 the number of worldwide infections will rise to almost 0.5 million. The spread of the virus will probably be enforced by the fact that a lot of people have their holidays and therefore travel by plane or bus.

As one would aspect, the development of the number of infections is exponential. The (natural) logarithm of the expected cases (dashed red line) is almost a linear curve. You may find more information of data and projections in the next XLS spreadsheet.

Big Explosion
If no additional prevention actions will be taken, a big explosion of the virus starts just after the holiday period in 2009.



It is questionable if the planned vaccinations for October or later will be in time.Perhaps it's better to have a vaccination, or take Tamiflu, than a vacation in July or August.

Global Infection
If no adequate rigid measures will be taken within the next months, the future of humanity could be serious at stake:



Unrestrained exponential growth on basis of the the current growth-path, will lead to a more or less complete global infection by the end of January 2010.

By then ruffly 36 million people worldwide, will have died. If the mortality rate doesn't stabilize (as it currently appears) at 0.45% of the infected people, the effects could be worse.

As the famous 'Wheat and chessboard problem' already illustrated, exponential growth is a dangerous underestimated killer. It's just like a tsunami: when you notice it, it's too late to act.

Let's trust governments are not underestimating this Swine virus threat.

Happy holidays!

Related Links:
- World Population Density
- U.S. Death rates influenza virus 1918
- Visual Flu Tracker
- LinkedIn: InArm: Important remarks by Dave Ingram

Important Notice

• The 'July 2009 estimation', based on new more reliable and accurate WHO data, you may find on Swine Flu Counter.
  
  
• You'll find the latest (Sept 6, 2009) estimation and Swine Flu Counter on Swine Flu Counter Update-sept-2009