When will 20 lakh people have contracted A/H1N1 ("swine flu")?

Hi sql,
Am very impressed with your interest and ability to figure out these numerics. I haven't checked them myself yet, but in glancing it over, it looks reasonable...
Great job. I am going to have to send my math problems over to you.
good luck with your question..
in seeing the title, i figured the lakh was some rare tribe i had not heard of,ken

i guess there might be a very, very tiny problem. If your lakh is 100,000, then there would be 67,780 lakh in the world , unlike your figure says (it says 6,778 lakh).. But 20 lakh, would still be 20/67,780 or ~ 1/3,400, or about 30/100th of 1% so you are ok there. so question is still fine...

You're correct; my mistake. I've moved the decimal one place to the right in the photo caption. Mea culpa. :-)

why not say indian people and put the question in the true context that ever one knows
i suppose you only reqire 20, mea culpa say what you mean

notwithstanding you impressive math computations, I will argue that the answer is never. The health authorities will soon give up trying to document swine flu cases. If enough of them are occurring, it would be too costly and unnecessary, since the bug is no more virulent than seasonal flu. The excitement is dying down, the story will peter out. There is no real point in testing everybody. Containment is no longer possible, and given its relatively mild nature, unnecessary. There may be wild estimates floating around, but I don't see anything definitive or documentable happening.
Sorry to rain on your parade, sqlman. Mea maxima culpa!

I understand what you're saying, tuff_sledding, but I think you're wrong several points. If you'll allow me:

"notwithstanding you impressive math computations,"
Ah, thanks, but the math was easy. :-)

"I will argue that the answer is never."
So put some cash on option #7. :-)

"The health authorities will soon give up trying to document swine flu cases."
Not true. As I've stated, if this thing continues to grow, the WHO will, of course, switch to bulk rather than precision reporting of numbers. That is, you won't likely see a WHO press release stating, "WHO confirms 872,316 cases of A/H1N1 in the South African Region". More likely, you'll ready "WHO says there are more than 850,000 cases of A/H1N1 in Africa." That being said, though, one of the WHO's reasons for being is monitoring pandemic activity; if this keeps growing--which it has every indication of doing for now--they by decree will be following its spread with great interest. On top of that, the WHO really has no idea what to expect. Yes, the flu could die down and disappear a month from now; that is very possible. Or it could keep growing and growing into a truly global pandemic. Or it could appear to fade, then quietly simmer through the Northern Hemisphere summer, only to return in an even deadlier, more virulent form come fall. It's that not knowing what could happen that will keep the WHO on top of this.

"If enough of them are occurring, it would be too costly and unnecessary, since the bug is no more virulent than seasonal flu."
Perhaps no more virulent than the seasonal flu...but, again, very unknown; it's a new twist on a bug that epidemiologists and virologists are watching quite closely.

"...excitement is dying down, the story will peter out."
The mainstrame media, of course, will focus their attention elsewhere, and the people will follow suit. That's to be expected. But the WHO isn't driven by ratings or viewership; their singular job is to protect the health of the planet's growing population, so they'll be watching even if no one else is.

"Containment is no longer possible,"
With this I--and every credible epidemiologist and virologist in the world--agree. That's also a HUGE worry...

"...and given its relatively mild nature, unnecessary."
The Spanish Flu pandemic that killed tens of millions last century began as a mild virus in a few midwestern states, and it barely made the news. Of course, it came roaring back in the fall to become the killer virus it was. As I've said so many times: lethality doesn't determine pandemic status.

"There may be wild estimates floating around, but I don't see anything definitive or documentable happening."
Do you mean numbers-wise? How about these (taken from my own comments on another market):

--Japan and Australia reported their first confirmed cases of A/H1N1 yesterday; that brings the total to over 4000 cases worldwide, in nearly 30 countries, and on every continent but Africa (and there are a dozen suspected cases there awaiting confirmation).

--The number of confirmed cases in the U.S. has surpassed those in Mexico, and more are being added nearly every hour; the U.S. total will be somewhere north of 2000 with today's release. The virus has now been confirmed in 43 states plus the District of Columbia; it's expected to be in all 50 states by next weekend. Sustained human-to-human transmission has and is occurring.

--Brazil confirmed its first domestically-transmitted case yesterday (that is, a confirmed case that didn't happen as a result of someone travelling to North America).

--Spain, the hardest hit of the EU countries, has over 100 confirmed cases now, many of them in-country domestically-transmitted.

All this market is asking is whether and when the A/H1N1 virus will affect 2 million people...or just one-tenth of one percent of the people the WHO has speculated could be affected. If you ask me, it's not a whether; it's only a when. :-)

tuff,

I don't see the problem. If you think the answer is never, put your $ on never, and make a bundle.

I think some of your concerns seem right (about what would happen if it goes in that direction), but that does not
mean nobody would estimate it, however, it might be in a far, far different world than we have now... but hey, what else is new... there's lots of questions that would bog down..
ken

@sqlman: you are very persuasive. you're right about the possibility of the return performance and further shift in the genome to make it more virulent. For the record, I do have a thousand on the never option.
@bigken, I never said there was a problem with the question, I was just expressing an opinion about what is likely to happen. The question is very creative and likely to generate lots of action.

@sqlman: as you reported on your other market, the authorities are now recommending only screening the most severe cases. This is the beginning of what I predicted earlier. It would just be too costly to test everybody. So, while 20 lakh people may get the flu, we likely will never know for sure. Less developed countries just don't have the resources to do all this testing. Rural parts of the most populous countries and the poor inhabitants of the big cities who do not have access to proper health care will all be under the radar. This is why I think you may not be able to get firm and accurate numbers on this pandemic.
All that said, kudos on a series of well constructed and meticulously updated questions on swine flu - you seem to have considerable expertise in this area. You are the champ!!!

Thanks for the kind words. But while we certainly won't have exact counts, the WHO--using numbers from each country's own CDC--will be able to to publish things such as "South Korea reports that > 1% (approximately 480,000 people) of its population has contracted A/H1N1", or "PAHO reports infections in every country, with an infected rate of +- 0.01%, or c. 20,000,000". You get the idea.

If this continues to spread at its current logarithmic pace--especially if the southern hemisphere, just coming into flu season, reports pandemic-like growth--the 2,000,000 number won't be far off at all.

But we'll see... :-)

The US CDC says the US is at one million cases already. If that number gets verified and sent up to the WHO, we'll be halfway there already... :-)

According to a report I saw on Channel 4 (UK) news, 5 in 1000 people are dying of swine flu, while ordinary flu mortality is 1 per 1000 and the 1918 flu 20 per 1000. That's 500 per lakh or an estimated death toll of 10,000 for 20 lakh; there is some indication that folks somewhat elderly have some resistance, while it may or may not be a statistical illusion that younger children are more at threat from this strain (the 1918 flu was worst it seems in young to middle age adults, ordinary flu mortality is pretty certainly worst among the elderly).

With 1 lakh of confirmed cases, mostly recovered, and say a weekly cycle of cases, it doesn't take a very high infection rate to reach 20 lakh in fairly short order - probably before mass vaccination programmes can be rolled out.

Good analysis, bookie. Experts say we're already at 2,000,000 to 5,000,000 global cases; it's only a question of when WHO will validate those numbers using whatever means they feel they must...

Ta, sqlman. I take it that if the 2 million mark is (has been?) reached in July, but this isn't published till say October, the question will settle as July? Judging from the sudden upswing...

I'll bring in outside help on this one to avoid even the appearance of hanky-panky, but the settlement details say WHO has to announce the 2,000,000 number...and they haven't done that yet. In fact, the most recent official WHO number is 94,512. I'm just feeling confident after today's WHO announcement that the H1N1 flu pandemic is the fastest-moving pandemic ever, and that it has "spread internationally with unprecedented speed." In past pandemics, they said, influenza viruses have needed more than six months to spread as widely as the new H1N1 virus has spread in less than six weeks. Also, in just the past week alone, UK's Health Protection Agency is reporting an estimated 55,000 new cases. With that kind of exponential growth, 2,000,000 doesn't seem far away.

I think this should be unsuspended. So far the official total http://www.who.int/csr/don/2009_10_16/en/index.html is under 400,000 (yes, that does acknowledge that this number does not include unreported cases). The description nonetheless makes it clear that the official total summarised by the regional offices will be used. The original suspend date was June 2010.

Leaving questions suspended for a long time is unfair, preventing players from adjusting their positions. If the question cannot be played, it should be voided.

Well, as with at least one other A/H1N1 market, this one has never required that only confirmed cases would be used for settlement. In fact, the settlement details specifically state that estimated case counts would be used.

I really do wish that people who find themselves having wagered on the wrong position(s) would stop trying to reverse their mistakes by suggesting/requesting voids. That's like the casino gambler who cries for a misdeal after every poker hand that he loses. ;-)