I'm stuck in my house with the flu. It's got me thinking about what the "fudge factor" between the number of confirmed cases of any transmittable disease and the total number in the general population. Typically a flu diagnosis wouldn't involve a test for the strain. But this year's new entrant into the list of pandemic influenza had health officials testing everyone presenting with flu symptoms. At least for a short time it did. Now that we know H1N1 2009 is mild in most cases and that the strain of flu doesn't effect the recommendation in mild cases - rest, drink plenty of fluids & avoid other people - the swabs for testing have stopped those with mild cases.
The lack of test was my experience the other day; I started coming down with symptoms associated with the flu on Thursday. But as I had been trying to shake a head cold I didn't think anything of the symptoms. Then Friday I woke up with a fever, I was lethargic (more than normal) and had a headache. Since I had the flu shot this season I was a little concerned that if I had the flu it would be this new strain and that I didn't want to spread it. I was lucky to get a booking with my GP (that's a General Practitioner of Medicine for that one reader outside of Australia) early afternoon. The doc said it presented like a mild case of the flu but they weren't swabbing [for testing] since the advice doesn't change.
So I'm isolated this weekend. Which normally I'd read or get lost in thought, but both these trigger the headaches. Writing the last few posts haven't helped with the headache either.
So back to my question; what is the "fudge factor" between confirmed cases and the total number of infected in the general population? Does anyone do research in this area?
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