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Swine Flu News Summary
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Chile confirms swine flu in turkeys
Aug 21 02:12 PM US/Eastern

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) - Chile said Friday that tests show swine flu has jumped to birds, opening a new chapter in the global epidemic. Top flu and animal-health experts with the United Nations in Rome and the U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta were monitoring the situation closely, but said the infected turkeys have suffered only mild effects, easing concern about a potentially dangerous development.

Chile's turkey meat remains safe to eat, they said, and so far there have been no signs of a potentially dangerous mutation. Chile's health ministry said it ordered a quarantine Friday for two turkey farms outside the port city of Valparaiso after genetic tests confirmed sick birds were afflicted with the same virus that has caused a pandemic among humans.  "What the turkeys have is the human virus-there is no mutation at all," Deputy Health Minister Jeannette Vega told Chile's Radio Cooperativa on Friday.

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Depression Assured Because of Swine Flu? Maybe
Karl Denninger
 

The Centers for Disease Control has predicted a 2.1 percent to 3.3 percent death rate among those who come down with swine flu this fall, which translates into an additional 52,000 to 86,000 deaths in the city over a three-month period, Kasdan said.

Has the CDC actually predicted a 2.1-3.3% death rate for those who come down with the swine flu?
(This is known as the "CFR", or "clinical fatality rate", among those in the field.)

I have been trying to source this statement - so far without success. But if it is accurate then there are two things you need to take away from this right here and now:

First, we will have an economic depression. If the CAR, or "attack rate" (the percentage of people in the population) who get the flu is in the typical range of 40-60% of the population, then a CFR of 2-3% means one million or more dead Americans this fall and winter, or more succinctly, somewhere around one in a hundred. If your kid goes to school with 1,000 other people, 10 of them will die (on average.)

This sort of disruption in the economy, given where it is now, guarantees a contraction of GDP of 10% or more from the top, which is the definition of economic depression. We can argue about "how bad of a depression" later.

Read the whole article here.