Here’s a novel way of looking at the H1N1 flu pandemic, by courtesy of Ron Law, a New Zealand risk and policy consultant.

He’s been scanning the statistics for the pandemic, and concludes in a letter to  BMJ  (October 3, p 768, BMJ 2009;339: b3959) that death rates are about one per 20,000 to 30,000 infections. Given that about 3,000 deaths have been reported worldwide, he draws the conclusion that there must have been between 60 and 90 million cases.
 
By any measure, he says, H1N1 is a benign flu virus. New Zealand normally has about 400 flu deaths a year: this year there were 17. “It could be argued that the pandemic has resulted in 383 lives being saved, which makes it more effective than any flu vaccine” he concludes.
 
So don’t think of it as an infection, more a vaccine in easily accessible form for which nobody has to pay a penny.
 
I’m not sure how seriously Mr Law intends us to take this, but since his letter was sent to BMJ he’s sent a rapid response to his own letter, saying that total deaths have been revised upwards to 4,000, meaning that 80-120 million people have had H1N1 “with no significant disruption to emergency, medical, social or commercial aspects of society”.
 
Elsewhere he’s put it even more strongly, saying: “It could be argued that it is so benign that having supplanted the 'normal' flu, as it has in countries like Australia and New Zealand, it will actually go down in history as the first pandemic that saved lives... now there's a thought....”