Cheese and the Onion
Are the only two things I know about the state of Wisconsin. But now, a third factoid - according to the CDC, it is the USA's capital of swine flu, with 2217 confirmed and suspected cases, thrashing Texas's meagre 1670 and California's 973. Not having a large population or a land frontier with Mexico hasn't stopped those plucky Wisconsiners - they're going down with it like ninepins. Roughly 10% of all the swine flu cases in the world are in Wisconsin - it has half as many as Mexico, and is gaining market share - between 1 June and 8 June, 1 in 6 new cases in the WHO data were attributable to Wisconsin. Does anyone have the foggiest idea why this might be the case, other than the obvious explanation that something's up with the reporting system? I checked whether Wisconsin was a big pig producer and discovered a) that the US pork industry likes crappy recipe-laden trade association websites in bright colours a lot more than it likes statistics and b) eventually that no it isn't, it's 17th biggest in the Union, which given the cluster of desert states and tiny urban ones means it's solid mid-table. Also, North Carolina and Virginia (homes of the real pork powerhouses don't seem to have very many cases at all.
Any ideas?
(by the way, the CDC reckons that there are actually 100,000 cases of swine flu in the USA rather than the 13,217 "confirmed and suspected" cases. In other words, they reckon that the passive reporting system in place undercounts swine flu by a factor of roughly 8. Veterans of the Lancet/Iraq debate will not be surprised.
Wisconsin is a traditionally liberal state. It wouldn't surprise me if they have a better state public health system than most. Ergo, this might just be relative over-reporting. If that 1 in 8 public reporting number is an average, I wouldn't be shocked to find out its 1 in 50 in Texas, 1 in 20 in California and more like 1 in 3 in some northern states.
ReplyDeleteAlso, some inner-American states have surprisingly large and recent networks of illegal immigrants from Mexico.
ReplyDeleteAnd the state of Victoria has about 5% of the world swine flu cases. But there are reasons for that:
ReplyDeleteHowever, according to professor Robert Booy from the University of Sydney, the reason Victoria has the highest per capita rate of swine flu in the world "may simply be down to Australia's tough testing regime," and "is probably the best in the world at detecting this influenza virus." As a result, he feels that the U.S. and Mexico probably had more cases than have been reported, stating "I would be quite certain that there's ten to a hundredfold more cases in the US than are confirmed.[137] In early June WHO and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration suggested that one of the testing methods used in Australia gives only a "presumptive positive" rather than a "definitive positive" result for H1N1 influenza and is only about 90 percent accurate. As a result, they stated that some Australians may have been given a false diagnosis.
So either Victoria only has 4.5% of the swine flu cases, or other regions are undercounting. I think the later reason is true. Wisconsin may be one of the few US states that gets the figure right.
Wouldn't Americans go down like ten-pins?
ReplyDeleteAccording to wikipedia Wisconsin has a sister-state relationship with Mexico's Jalisco. Maybe they sleep in the same bed.
ReplyDeleteCould just be sheer chance. I doubt the pig population has much to do with it - it's been human-to-human for ages now. Maybe there was a school trip from St Paul to Mexico at the wrong time, maybe someone with the flu went to a state medical convention or a major sporting event or a megachurch or something.
ReplyDeleteUm, ajay. St Paul's not in Wisconsin. Milwaukee is. (Which, to add another important fact, is where Happy Days were set.) My American in-laws are from that neck of the woods, and from having spent Christmas last year with them, Alex's suggestion seems plausible. (Sadly, having seen the anguished discussions they had about a family member needing emergency health care, I wouldn't say that it had a good public health system.)
ReplyDeleteOther useful WI facts: It's got very lenient drink-driving laws - a first offence will generally only give a caution.
it's been human-to-human for ages now
ReplyDeleteAmerican-to-American more like. The strange thing here is that H1N1 appears to be three diseases:
1) A very contagious but not very lethal epidemic in the USA
2) A very lethal and quite contagious minor epidemic in Mexico which is now burning itself out
3) A not very contagious and not very lethal epidemic elsewhere in the world.
And as a result of the above, I would tentatively advance the hypothesis that "Mexican" swine flu is actually a mutated version of an American endemic flu which was brought to Mexico by a tourist and which killed a lot of nonimmune people very quickly. The only interesting thing about Wisconsin and pigs is that it had incredibly low incidence of the 1999 swine flu outbreak.
ReplyDeleteThe only interesting thing about Wisconsin and pigs
ReplyDeleteThey have pig racing
Richard J: thanks (oops)
ReplyDeleteI am not sure that having a large number of Mexican illegals should make Wisconsin likely to have more swine flu. Yes, both swine flu and illegals come from Mexico, but illegals don't go back and forth very much, I would have thought. Once they're in, they're in. (though maybe relatives visiting legally from Mexico might be the route you mean.)
The three types of flu that BB notes are concordant with the flu actually being not very lethal, but most of the non-lethal cases being missed by the Mexican authorities.
I'm just thinking, TBH, of the interesting comment made by one of my in-laws, with a perverse touch of civic pride, that Milwaukee used to be the most culturally segregated city in the US - network effects and all that.
ReplyDeleteWisconsin ain't THAT liberal. Just Madison is which is what foreign liberals hear about. Madison, Wisconsin, is sort of like Austin, Texas.
ReplyDeleteMilwaukee?
ReplyDeleteWisconsin was, IIRC, the only mid-West state where white males supported Obama over McCain.
ReplyDeleteAnecdotally speaking, I was pleasantly surprised how many of my in-laws were all in favour of 'socialised medicine' etc.
Of course, it is also the state of Ed Gein.
It's the cheese. And the beer, and the bratwurst.
ReplyDeleteSome years ago, Wisconsin had a contest to choose a new license plate motto-- my favorite entry was "Eat Cheese or Die". (For non-US readership-- this is funny because the motto on the New Hampshire license plate is "Live Free or Die.")
"Of course, it is also the state of Ed Gein."
ReplyDeleteBut he was a democrat
Cheese and Onions
ReplyDeleteThe Rutles
I have always thought in the back of my mind, "Cheese and Onions".
I have always thought that the world was unkind, "Cheese and Onions".
Do I have to spell it out ? "C-H-E-E-S-E A-N-D O-N-I-O-N-S", oh no.
X Man or machine (Man or machine) Keep yourself clean (Keep yourself clean)
Or be a has-been (Ah-ah) Like Dinosaur, oh oh-oh.
Y Man of advise (Man of advise) For ev'rything nice (Ev'rything nice)
You'd better think twice (Ah-ah) At least once more, oh oh.