Which US state will be the last to report a confirmed case of Infuenza A/H1N1 (aka "swine flu")?

wow this looks great with the map.

Thanks. I couldn't find a map that wasn't loaded with javascript or Flash, so I made--and will host and maintain--my own. Hope that's okay... :-)

Way cool sqlman!

Florida & Conneticut confirmed

Georgia, Maine, Missouri confirmed

Wow sql, that's a lot of work, and requires some great software, or knowledge on how to do it.. you are really dedicated to this site...!!!!
You should get a raise. , or get some pirate booty.. :)

I agree sql is deserving of mucho kudos!

Yes, confirmed in Florida (the next county over from me--yikes!), Missouri, and Connecticut. There's still confusion about the Georgia case; that may be a case assigned to Kentucky, as the woman is a Kentucky resident. The Maine cases are confirmed by the state CDC, which means they now go to the US CDC for confirmation (or not). There will likely be another four to seven states with confirmed cases tomorrow on the CDC website--the lone source of settlement data here--so I'll update the map when that's released (an hour or so before noon EDT).

And thanks for all the kind words. Not that dedicated; just having fun!

As expected, as of the 5/2 1100EDT CDC update, Connecticut, Florida, and Missouri were added to the lists of states with confirmed cases of H1N1. (For some reason, they've removed Nebraska from their list, proving that even the doctors aren't completely sure what's going on.) I've updated the map, of course, and also colored the states this markt deals with light yellow to help distinsguish them from the rest.

now why would anyone from Hawaii want to travel to Mexico?

Free health care.

Yeah, and No guns, equality, no death penalty, the people own the oil industry and a lot of the media companies... I could go on. It is pretty close to Utopia down there.

Added 9 more states today (5/3) as reflected in the map, though none of the states listed in this market's options yet have confirmed cases.

I think you can rule out Oklahoma. I have a great friend there who is suddenly "sick as a dog" this past Thursday with flu, and he lives in a small country town. He is doing better today and claims that tamiflu works miracles...

Did your friend go to the doctor for tests? Doctors are speculating that the virus may be being undercounted, and that--in fact--a large part of the reason for the 'declining phase' comments coming out of Mexico is due to fewer people going to a hospital, clinic, or doctor to be seen, as they've heard so many stories about the gentle nature of A/H1N1...

Added six more states with today's (5/4) CDC update: Idaho, Louisiana, Maryland, North Carolina, Oregon, and Pennsylvania. That still leaves the eight states mentioned here and six others (Washington, South Dakota, Arkansas, Mississippi, Georgia, and Maine) with no confirmed cases of A/H1N1 2009.

Hey sqlman, whether I win or lose this Q, I gotta say that I love this Q and your great intro, map and updates! A+ in my book!

@cheesenips: thanks! This was a fun and easy one to create. If, as the CDC predicts, A/H1N1 will soon be in every state, watch this one start to gain more traction over the next several days and/or weeks...

5/5: added just two today: Georgia and Maine, leaving Vermont and West Virginia as the only states east of the Mississippi with no confirmed cases. And still, of course, none of the eight states listed in this market's options have reported CDC-confirmed cases.

Obviously with just 12 states left to confirm. there may not be many days from here on out where more than one state is confirmed...and, in fact, there may be days where no state is confirmed. That's when this question will get interesting... :)

montana is a bad bet. it borders with alberta and thats where the farmers are giving the flu to pigs

Oklahoma's a bad bet, too; they just announced a confirmed case, meaning that if the CDC backs that up tomorrow, it'll be gone. 9 cases were also confirmed in Washington state today, which--if confirmed at the national level;--will bring the total to 40 as of tomorrow. Who'da thunk it?

...and Hawaii should be on the red list tomorrow; three cases have been tentatively confirmed by the state, and CDC confirmation is expected later today.

5/6: as expected, Oklahoma, Washington state, and Hawaii were all added today, bringing the total to 41...including two of the states in this market's options. That leaves only the following options: 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, & 10. Getting closer...

5/7: no new states added (for the first time in six days), but a lot of new cases; the official CDC tally is up to 896, including about 100 cases each in California, New York, and Texas, and more than 200 in Illinois.

At least one new state should be added tomorrow (5/8): South Dakota has a new confirmed case. Vermont has a probable case which may or may not add that state to the list tomorrow (or Saturday). And the total number of cases will go up dramatically tomorrow, as many states now have their own test kits and no longer need to wait for results to come back from Atlanta's CDC. Arizona has well over 100 now, Illinois is nearing 300, and--inexplicably--Wisconsin suddenly found 200+ cases. The total should be close to or over 1500 by tomorrow evening.

(On an odd note, the states of Arkansas and Mississippi--surrounded by states with hundreds of cases--are, for now, clean of the virus. There's speculation at the CDC that the reporting process in those states may be flawed as, statistically, zero cases "makes no sense".)

5/8: as expected, South Dakota is gone; that leaves only 8 states (Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, Arkansas, Mississippi, Vermont, and West Virginia). Washington, D.C. has a confirmed case, too, but that district is not in this market, of course.

The number of confirmed U.S. cases almost doubled overnight; there are now 1639. The top 5 states are Illinois (392), Wisconsin (240), New York (174), Arizona (131), and California (107). Texas and Massachusetts are both pushing 100, as well.

Ha nice work with the map there sqlman, this q keeps getting more impressive :)

Yep, impressive graphics, sql.

Thanks for the good words, guys. I'm just having fun; as I said earlier, this one should draw a little more interest as more states come off the map. (Speaking of which: Arkansas confirmed five cases today, so it should be off tomorrow. And while not confirmed yet, Vermont has a probable case which could be confirmed tomorrow as well.)

either WV people have a strong immune system or their doctors ain't smart..ie meaning they have cases but have figured it out yet. their surrounded by states with confirmed cases yet they have none.

*haven't

05/09: the CDC has released today's numbers:

--There are now 2254 confirmed cases of A/H1N1 in the United States, up 615 from yesterday's count.

--The virus has now been confirmed in 43 states, including Vermont, one of those listed in this market's options. That leaves just Alaska, Montana, North Dakota, West Virginia, and Wyoming as the states on which this market can settle. (Arkansas, as noted earlier, is reporting five cases of the virus, and will be on the CDC website tomorrow, meaning it will be colored in tomorrow. That will leave Mississippi as the only state not named in this market without a confirmed case.)

--Six states now have 100+ confirmed cases, led by Illinois with 421. (There's also Wisconsin [317], New York [190], California [171], Texas [110], and Michigan [103].)

05/09: no new states today (the CDC say that each state's official health department numbers supersede their own, so Arkansas also has cases--but for this question, only the official CDC numbers count)

--There are now 2532 confirmed cases in the US, up 278 from yesterday's count.

--Eight states now have 100 or more confirmed cases: Arizona (182), California (282), Illinois (466), Michigan (114), New York (190), Texas (108), Washington (102), and Wisconsin (357).

05/11: no new states today again. There's apparently a growing disconnect between the numbers each state's health department is reporting and those being reported by the US CDC; some states actually lost numbers overnight, and the number of cases being reported by many states is substantially higher than those on the national website. In addition, some other states don't seem to be transmitting numbers to the CDC:

--Arkansas has been reporting five cases for several days now, yet the CDC shows no record;
--Both Montana and North Dakota have at least one probable case each that have been awaiting confirmation or rejection by the CDC for four days now;
--Alaska has two suspected/probable cases the the CDC hasn't addressed yet;
--California's number rose by more than 120 over the weekend, but this morning the CDC is once again showing that state's cases from Friday, ignoring the Saturday and Sunday numbers.

A count of the cases being reported by each state's health department produces a total of nearly 3000, yet the CDC is showing 2614 cases as of today, a rise of just 82 cases since yesterday (and by far the smallest increase in a week).

What's this all mean? Hard to say. Perhaps communication is being worked on, and the national site will agree with the states tomorrow. Or maybe the flu really is rapidly dying out, and there are far fewer cases being discovered. Or maybe...

Well, I don't know. As I keep saying: we'll see...

05/12: Montana finally has a confirmed case, meaning that just six states have none (though at least three of the six have probable/state-confirmed cases awaiting CDC confirmation): Alaska, Arkansas, Mississippi, North Dakota, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Of course, neither Arkansas nor Mississippi are listed in this market's options, so keep an eye on them!

Overall, the CDC has now confirmed more than 3000 cases in the U.S., nearly eight times the cases confirmed just a week ago, and 60 times the cases confirmed two weeks ago. (And cases confirmed by individual states yet to make it to the CDC add up to several hundred more.)

05/13: no new states today, but an additional 350 or so cases, taking the U.S. total to over 3,350. That's more than double what there were just 5 days ago. There are now nine states with over 100 confirmed cases, led by nearly 600 in Illinois, and just under 500 in Wisconsin.

To help expedite the confirmation process, the CDC last week sent out several A/H1N1 test kits to each state. Today, however, due to the 'alarming' number of suspected cases, the CDC has asked many states to back off testing everyone, and instead focus just on the 'most severe' cases. What that means is, obviously, the number of confirmed cases may, in many states, appear to level off, an inaccurate reflection of what's really going on. Too, because of the growth of the virus, the CDC intends to shortly cease giving out individual numbers, and instead report things such as "The A/H1N1 virus is heavily epidemic in the Northeast and North Central U.S." That will obviously affect this market (and others). We'll have to see.

05/14: added two states today: North Dakota and (finally) Arkansas. That leaves just four: Alaska, West Virginia, Wyoming, and--the only state left not named in this markets options--Mississippi.

Nearly 950 confirmed cases were added with this morning's update--the largest one-day increase to date--taking the US total to just under 4300. Illinois is still #1 with 620 cases, and Wisconsin's a close 2nd with 510 (and seven other states have more than 100 cases each).

05/15: no news states added, so we;re where we were yesterday so far as this market is concerned.

Over 400 cases were confirmed since yesterday; the US total is nearing 5,000.

05/16: there are hundreds of new cases, but the CDC hasn't yet updated their page. As soon as they do, I'll try to update this one.

05/16: Because of A) the rapidly-growing number of cases and B) the fact that many states don't report their own individual cases until Monday, the CDC will only update the national count Monday-Friday. That means, of course, the numbers will appear to level off over the weekend--which will cause many news organizations to talk about how the flu is fading out--then those numbers will shoot up dramatically Monday and Tuesday, causing those same organizations to jump into a frenzy of panic over the "skyrocketing" number of cases that "just" appeared! :-)

Mainstream media are trusted less than ever but some people still listen to them apparently. Thanks for your continual updates sqlman! What an interesting market this has turned out to be!

Congress makes the "laws" in the US. If the flu wishes to live in the US, it should obey our laws. If the CDC has weekends off, then the flu should obey that law too.. So, why is it illegally spreading on weekends. Maybe this should be our new "war on terror", which we have stopped.. A war against illegal flu (not the peaceloving kind that does not spread on weekends.)

05/18: The stubborn Mississippi finally found some cases; we're left with only Alaska, West Virginia, and Wyoming...all three named in this market's options. (We're either lucky or good.)

As of today's update, the CDC says there are 5,123 confirmed cases of H1N1 in the country. 10 states have more than 100 cases, led (again) by Illinois with nearly 700. (As with last Monday, the CDC says many more cases will be reported and put onto tomorrow's update, as so many states offer no or only partial updates throughout the weekend.)

@bigken - Another case where I find myself searching for a "digg" or "thumbs up" button. Consider yourself dugg. :)

Thanks Jenni,
I am so outdated, I do not even know that term "digg".. thx, ken

Hey sql: I live in a (constant) state of confusion. If I get the flu after the other states, will this count as the last state to report the flu?
(the option "other"?)

05/19: No new states today, so we've still got the same three--Alaska, West Virginia, and Wyoming--hanging in there. The U.S. reports 5,469 confirmed cases, with Wisconsin's 766 taking the lead. (State cases add up to considerably more, but as we've stated, the CDC is aadmittedly slow to compile and report those numbers.)

05/20: again, no new states added, so again, we're still waiting for Alaska, West Virginia, and Wyoming to report confirmed cases. The CDC reports 5700+ cases this morning...

...though they admit there are tens--maybe hundreds--of thousands more than that. Due to budget constraints, and because the virus hasn't proven too lethal--yet--many state Departments of Health are now testing only hospitalized patients; those simply going to a clinic or doctor's office, or not seeing anyone at all, aren't being counted.

Sql,

That's a sticky wicket. But I guess a generic problem dealing with things not reported in a timely manner. I guess with the counts (even the uncounted counts) generally growing, eventually one will turn up with a bad enough case, to go to the hospital, and be tested, and counted....
So, I guess it is just a waiting game...
a lot of questions are this way.. but this is just an evident case.
ken

This article says flu in 47 states, just missing 4.
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/world/view/20090515-205125/CDC-4000-swine-flu-cases-in-47-US-states

Do we now have 51 states, or is my math off, or am i missing something.. They are saying no flu in Miss..
ken

No, we have 57 states.

the cdc counts puerto rico i believe

The CDC counts Washington D.C. in their state count on their H1N1 homepage, but we aren't using the District for this question.

Mississippi does have the flu; 5 cases with today's count (http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/update.htm)

05/21: no new states added today, and--in fact--very few cases; the 54 added are the fewest since May 4.

S-l-o-w-l-y working toward 50....

So, can we presume (by your statement --
S-l-o-w-l-y working toward 50....), for the purposes of this question... Puerto Rico, etc. are NOt counted? (and we are only dealing with the official 50

Yes. I'll put it into the settlement details, but the only states that matter are the actual 50 states. No overseas territories (incorporated or unincorporated, or organized or unorganized), districts, special exclusion zones, etc. need apply. States, period. :-)

05/22: No new states today, but 700+ new cases, bringing us up to 6500 or so. (There are still hundreds of state-confirmed cases in several states, including Wisconsin, not yet on the list.)

There's talk that, with the flu as prevalent as it is, that medical specialists in the three remaining states may not exactly have their ducks in a row when it comes to testing; the U.S. CDC intends to "check up on them.". :-)

The three reaining states are just too proud to admit a single case ;-)

So, how long will this market remain open? Suppose it is now July and no cases in new states have been reported for 4 weeks? Is there an option that covers the admittedly unlikely, but theoretically possible eventuality that, say Alaska and West Virginia, never reports a confirmed case (maybe in Alaska they don't believe in testing and in WV they can't figure out how to do it, or whatever..)?

Good question tuff. It's really hard to foresee things when there are strange factors like this occurring, since so few people are dying from this disease, and lots of people don't want to be labeled with swine flu, and the state's also don't want to be labeled.. etc. so there are these emotional factors likely occurring. We only get to see the tip of what might be a larger iceberg...(but hopefully not).

The CDC announced today that oit will now begin updating the state counts on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays (at or shortly after 11:00 AM EDT). This market will, then, be suspended each of those days at 11:00 AM, then re-opened after the report is released if it can't be settled yet.

After looking over the possible options, I see "none of the above" would cover the eventuality in my last post (unlikely, to be sure, but possible). But the other part still obtains: how long will this market remain open with no new states admitting a case of h1n1 influenza?

maybe when this epidemic is considered over?

My intent was that this would be an event-based market, meaning that it doesn\'t settle until every state has at least one confirmed case. We\'ve already ruled out the \'some other state\' option, as there are only three left, and all three are accounted for (in options 1, 7, and 8). (The final option was really there as a catch-all in case the final state was one not explicitly named in the other options.)\\r
\\n\\r
\\nWith a CDC-estimated 100,000+ cases in the United States, it\'s only a matter of days (or maybe a week or to) before this can settle...

Sounds like Wyoming is going down next, so there is finally some action.

Yeah, I reckon we\'re in a three-way sprint for the finish: as you said, Wyoming has confirmed (http://www.casperjournal.com/articles/2009/05/27/news/news052709c.txt), Alaska announced a confirmed case today (http://www.fortmilltimes.com/124/story/581267.html), and West Virginia announced four \'probable\' cases as well (http://www.cbs59.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=59916). But since this market will settle only on data from the US CDC website, it really comes down to how quickly that federal site verifies then updates its records to match. I\'ve seen them do it in anywhere from two days to nearly two weeks...

And then there were two. Wyoming\'s case was confirmed by the US CDC, which means only Alaska and West Virginia have no federally-confirmed cases. Will either or both of those go Monday? We\'ll see...

Well, let\'s see. Alaska\'s case is confirmed, WV has some \"probable\" cases. This seems to favor WV being last, but who knows.\\r
\\nGreat question, sqlman, awesome graphics and updates. \\r
\\nThanks for all your hard work on this!

if you go to the gallup site you will find there are rerorted that all of the states have the infection

Thanks, tuff. It\'s been a fun market to do; I almost hate to see it end...\\r
\\n\\r
\\nWest Virginia\'s four cases are still listed as probable, which means they were confirmed by the state\'s lab, but not yet by the US CDC, a process which takes a week or so. (The CDC doesn\'t certify a state for A/H1N1 confirmation until that state has had the US CDC confirm five cases on its own.) Alaska\'s own state-confirmed case was sent to the US CDC a day or more before the West Virginia cases, which is why Alaska may make it across the finish line first.

I agree with tuff.. there ought to be an "award" for the best question -- not only in terms of H$ on the question, but the continuing interest in the question, and the "artistic aspects" or whatever you call the question presentation. You have developed a fantastic presentation that has been attractive to view, and informative -- so KUDOS to you sql!!!

Thanks, Ken. It was fun to make and maintain. Sadly, today's the last day; both Alaska and West Virginia have US CDC-confirmed cases today, meaning this will settle on option #9 ('Two or more of the above on the same day'). I'll be updating the map for the last time later... :-(

Arrrgh, I didn't guess that two would be confirmed on same day... c'est la vie...
Still, I had fun guessing.....

Agree with tuff and ken. AAA+++ question and presentation!!! Hey sqlman: GL with the other flu Qs-- I'm betting with you on some of them. Not that I wish flu on world but-- you know what I mean I think!

Oh, man...after all that, I lost on this one. I would have lost a lot more, but I played a hunch last night and put a few bucks on the "two states at the same time" option. Oh, well, it was fun. (Make sure to check out the final graphic!)

@cheesenips: Thanks. I'm almost embarrassed to say how much money I've got in the H1N1 markets. I'll just say this: if it becomes a pandemic--which I'm fairly certain it will--I'll win enough Hubdub $ to buy a nice-sized Hubdub estate home in Hubdub Malibu. :-)