A study has found that although older people are less likely to contract the swine flu, they are far more likely to die if they do get it.
An analysis of more than 1,000 California patients hospitalized with H1N1 flu during the first four months of the pandemic found that infants were most likely to be admitted, and patients 50 and older were most likely to die once admitted.
In the first four months of the pandemic, H1N1, like the seasonal flu, was especially severe in older people, who are more likely to have underlying health conditions, says lead author Janice Louie, a public-health medical officer at the California Department of Public Health.
The fatality rate for people over 50 is in the neighborhood of 20%. And yet, the CDC still has not updated their guidelines for deciding who should be given a flu shot.
Once the demand for vaccine for the prioritized groups has been met at the local level, programs and providers should also begin vaccinating everyone from the ages of 25 through 64 years. Current studies indicate that the risk for infection among persons age 65 or older is less than the risk for younger age groups. However, once vaccine demand among younger age groups has been met, programs and providers should offer vaccination to people 65 or older.
It would have been helpful if the study’s data had been broken down into the same age categories as the CDC guidelines, but my guess is that a 65 year old who contracts the flu is more likely to die of it than a 50 year old. I’d also liked to have seen the data in terms of total fatalities, rather than a fatality rate. A 20% fatality rate doesn’t tell you how many people are dying.
The study points out that one reason older people are more at risk of death due to the flu is that they are more likely to have other health problems. Yet the CDC guidelines make no mention of the health status of older people. They’re last in line, regardless of their condition.
I know that it’s a balancing act. The CDC’s job is to prevent the transmission of disease, and the fact is that older people get out less and have less contact with others. But couldn’t the guidelines be modified so that a frail 70 year old woman get the shot before a healthy 28 year old man?
If an insurance company won’t cover a procedure, you have options—not great ones, but they exist. When the government rations our health care, there’s nowhere to turn.
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That’s true pretty much of every illness, isn’t it? I mean, fill in the blank in the sentence with any disease:
“A study has found that although older people are less likely to contract the __________, they are far more likely to die if they do get it.”
What disease doesn’t have that characteristic?
“That’s true pretty much of every illness, isn’t it?”
You’re right. The difference is, with other illnesses we don’t withhold the only preventive measure from older people.
Rusty Shackleford would say: “Is this the beginning of a plan to save Social Security?” But I wouldn’t.
I will now channel my inner Dale Gribble and come up with a conspiracy theory: the government created swine flu to kill off old people so that they can’t diss Obama’s policies at town hall meetings anymore. Discuss.
I have to find the source but I was reading just a few days ago that the total number of fatalities is very similiar to seasonal flu, but the distribution curve of fatalities among age groups is skewed compared to normal.