August 26th, 2009

Reports the New York Times:

Up to 90,000 deaths from swine flu in the United States, mostly among children and young people?

Up to 1.8 million people hospitalized, with 50 percent to 100 percent of the intensive-care beds in some cities filled with swine flu patients?

Up to half the population infected by this winter?

On Monday, a White House advisory panel issued a report with these estimates, calling them “a plausible scenario” for a second wave of infections by the new H1N1 flu. The grim numbers by the panel, the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology, got considerable play in the news media.

On Tuesday, however, officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the agency with the most expertise on influenza pandemics, suggested that the projections should be regarded with caution.

“We don’t necessarily see this as a likely scenario,” said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

A press officer for the disease centers, speaking carefully to avoid a feud with the White House press office, said, “Look, if the virus keeps behaving the way it is now, I don’t think anyone here expects anything like 90,000 deaths.”

Even one of the experts who helped prepare the report said Tuesday that the numbers were probably on the high side, given that some weeks had passed since the calculations were finished in early August.

Read more at the NYT.