lanow blog reporting two deaths over the weekend from pneumonia or 'flu like illness.
possibly from swine flu
or not.
33 yr male from Long Beach died monday - pneumonia over pre-existing lymphoma
45 yr male from La Mirada - died monda from pneumonia - County refused death certificate
Coroner's office is investigating
lifted from comment on Effect Measure
More like this
At least when it comes to killing young children in the developing world.
In William Osler's day (turn of the 20th century), pneumonia was called "the old man's friend," because it took the elderly away quietly and with relatively little fuss. It was most often caused by the pneumococcal organism, now called Streptococcus pneumoniae.
Some people find posts like this tiresome. There are so many things that need doing and so little time and resources to do them. Adding to the list makes our eyes glaze over. I understand. But that doesn't make this any less of a Big Deal.
A new article in the British scientific journal, The Lancet, suggests that seasonal influenza vaccines may not be effective in preventing community acquired pneumonia in people 65 years old and older.
I've been watching the news about this and managing to stay rather calm. Today local news reported 3 "possible" cases (I'm in Michigan). Since they are still "possible", and the people aren't reported to in bad shape, I've still been relatively calm.
Now: is it time to begin thinking "Oh shit"? (I'm not trying to be funny, just curious)
LA Times update says they're negative.
When they say that I wish they'd say what testing.
The comment from the coroner's office doesn't quite parse right, but it is second hand.
But that was very quick indeed.
Negative, Ghostrider.
It would be useful for positive results to be released.
I understand the hedging, but a all negative statement with qualifiers does not allay concern.
Something like: "it was flu, but seasonal H1N1"
or "bacterial pneumonia"
- not a "further testing indicated neither of two flu-related deaths being investigated in Los Angeles County appeared to be linked to the swine flu"
a literal parsing of such a statement is that they did some tests that did not indicate presence of swine flu, but no statement as to whether the tests could have made such a positive determination
eg a test for 'flu, and finding of unrecognized subtype is different from testing for 'flu and finding explicitly a particular known subtype
It is all a matter of framing.
We're big on framing over here.