Map: Swine flu in Ontario

Map updated November 24.

This map, created from the most recent swine flu update from the Ministry of Health issued November 20, shows the 7,793 known cases in the province. We now are noting the new cases for the week by region.

Comments

[Jennifer Jilks]

Interesting map!

[Joel Gibert]

You guys should get a GIS analyst to help you out .. mabye a thrid year intern student from Ryeson's school of Spatial Analysis.

[moof]

Hi Patrick. Great stuff as always.

Is there any chance you could do one of your "cases per 1000" versions of the H1N1 maps?

[tahneeyah]

There is now a confirmed case in the Kenora area...on a First Nation actually. Health Canada nurse confirmed it...not sure why the local news aren't reporting it.

[Knauf]

Before we scare heck out of every parent with young children... with the sad news story about the six year who passed away and had H1N1....lets get the facts out fast....IT is not news that a car accident victim who had H1N1 died...the death and accident are the news...not that the victim had been carrying flu virus....why did this poor child's life come to such a sad and quick end? What are all the mitigating facts?....you can't tell just half the story....to sell papers and vaccines. That is what Rumsfeld did to pad his golden handshake (40 Million I believe?)... with the Avian Flu and we are all falling prey to the 'fear mongering' once again...his company's Tamilflu vaccine has been dusted off and 'sold' as the panacea to H1N1. This systemic fear mongering is good for corporate bottom lines but brings no real help to the suffering....GIVE US THE NEWS really....not the press releases.
Thank you.

[Eric]

It won't take too long before every person living in Ontario will contract H1N1, given the pace at which the virus is spreading, and the inexcusable inaction and incompetence of the three level govenments in handling this situation.

[EVA DVORAK]

The main thing in life is do not panik.
Stay cool enjoy life.

Get help if you need it.

And God Bless you Canada

Ps We may be able to fix this mess were in.
there is HOPE AND FREDOM:evA

[EVA DVORAK]

Talk to you next week

Take care EVA

[Frank Vicioso]

Nobody wants to do anything about it but I will complain again anyway. Sanitation is important. The experts do not know enough about this strange bug to state that our garbage issues will not have an adverse effect on our dealing with the flu. Countries with poor environmental sanitation seem to have the most cases and just perhaps this bickering of out-of-control unions could provide a breeding ground to mutate this virus for a second round. In flu season?!
Can we not declare this garbage an essential service and get on with things?

[daisy]

hey eric...since you obviously have all the answers, why not share them?

[Alexis]

Here in Sweden the first case (and only case) is thankfully being contained, but how long until we look like this map too? I spent 20 years living in Ajax, looks like I left at the right time in 2006 before any of this swine flu madness. Good luck to all in Ontario, as a former welfare department employee in the City of Toronto, who spent most of her time working with the homeless and at the front desk, I would most likely have been on this map within a few months.

[Susana E Lancelle]

To Eva Dvrak:

You are right regarding sanitation and countries that have responded fast with measures of containment have managed to stop the spread for a while but they had to close schools, public places, etc.
Do you consider the UK a country with poor sanitation? They have doubled the number of cases, now 100 000.

[robert522.myvidoop.com]

Why are they not providing you with information as to the latest information?

They should be providing you with weekly reports as to how many cases to date and and how many during this past week. Broken down by Health Unit

It appears that the Ministry of Health does not trust Ontario citizens with uptodate information. Then if the Flu does hit do you think that the residence will trust the information they provide, or be more inclined to believe the rumours on the street.

Now is the time for the Ministry of Health to build up trust in case the Swine Flu does happen. So the people will not be fearful of the Ministry of Healths recomendations.

[Ajlouny]

Advise that needs to be repeated continually..Wash hand, cover mouth and noise when you sneeze. There is probably a huge worry about the swine flu, but my concern is more about the vaccine that has been developed to prevent the swine flu. Yes, get the flu shot, but how about the new vaccine that they are sending out. Concerns have already been raised that the new vaccine has not been sufficiently tested and that the effects, especially on children, are unknown. Like all vaccines, the long-term mercury-poisoning and immune-system harms will not even be looked for. Most “trials” will only look for adverse effects for 21 days.

[Svetlana McBirnie]

I am a Toronto women and had been sick for more than 3 weeks from the end of August (first time in 10 years) with I suspect was a swine flu.
Now my entire family (3 people) arw sick with various degree.

Despite going twice to walking clinic I was only tested for strep throat (negatively). I do believe that cases of swine flu simply not counted and pandemic is a full speed in Toronto.

Regards, Svetlana McBirnie

[Mark]

I don't understand. There are no solid facts on this virus just loads and loads of propaganda. The news media is totally blowing it with the swine flu along with the various health departments in north America. I had a flu virus of some sort a couple weeks ago. It was weird and it came in waves. I never really lost my appetite. I got over it, and it was fairly mild as far as flu's go. I also know lots of people who have had a flu of some sort in the last couple months and they all got over it. Is that the swine flu or not? If it is then why are we getting these rediculously low numbers posted for all to see when it's actually about 10,000 times highter then that in reality. I've read that over 90% of flu's right now are a variation of the swine flu. whether thats true or nt I don't know. I've also read in the paper and seen on the news that Tamiflu works grea, doesn't work at all, vitamin D works better, older people and people with comprimised immune systems are most at risk, younger people and those with strong immune systems are most at risk, it's spreading fast, it's tapering off, the flu we're getting is differen't from the Mexican one, it's the same but we're not getting it as bad...ect ect. And this is all from REAL news sources. Get your damn stories straight and quite reporting on it if you don't have a clue what you're talking about. You're driving people absolutely nuts here. One peice of information I've seen and I actually believe is that the swine flu is less deadly then the regular flu. Everyone calm down and if you get it consider yourself lucky to be getting it over with so you can ignore all this crap!

[Mark]

"Advise that needs to be repeated continually..Wash hand,"
This is good advise if you're planning a trip next week and you want to increase your odds of being healthy by a tiny margine but it you think this advise will keep you from getting the swine flu for the rest of your life you must be joking. Either you get it or you don't and your body and immune system will determine that.

[N.J.H.]

What concerns me about all the paranoid talk about H1N1 is the huge boom the pharmaceutical company can expect to make with the vaccine. A rushed-through, largely un-tested vaccine to be injected directly into my blood stream? Forget it. So far this flu is turning out to be milder than a normal bout of the flu. This is a cash-grab if I ever saw one and is further proof of the faliability of allopathic medicine. In the end what matters most is the strength and healh of our immune systems and a whole lotta' luck.

To add further fuel to my fire I read that the Canadian Government is offering the company making the vaccine protection from lawsuits. You must be kidding! So for all those people who end up with adverse effects from an untested drug, the taxpayers get to absorb the cost and the greedy pharmacuetical company walks away with a major winfall. It confirms my suspicions about who is really controlling the public health departments and the medical field.

[Sarah]

Chatham's local hospital and clinic generally do not test for swine flu unless it's life-threatening. That's why there is very little data available. Moreover, there is little data available for influenza complications that are not life-threatening (E.g. pneumonia). This lack of data is partially due to a lack of resources and doctors who are extremely busy, too busy to deal thoroughly with their patient load. This certainly wouldn't make the news, though.

[Infecting YOU Liberals]

Obviously with the Padded numbers the Provincial Gov't has given us as to how much funding is actually being used for Health Care, we are quickly going to find out how unprepared the Gov't has allowed our Medical System to become. We experienced SARS under the McQuinty umbrella and look how many people needlessly lost their lives or never recovered, now whave a far more infectious disease readying to attack us and our Health Care System is in a State of Ruins thanks in large part to McQuinty's Liberals. With any luck these politicians will experience the H1N1 Virus and get sick as hell from it, but then they will get preferential hospital treatment anyways, won't they.

[ontariomd]

IN INDIA last week the swine flu human young kids toddlers young adults at prime
of life was over 500.assuming a 1% deathrate it could translate into
1,000,000,000 x .001=10,000,000 deaths conservatively, is that a hoax or company
greed problem?lots of baby and young adult deaths is not chickenfeed.
it is serious.

[A Richardson]

According to a health official 'so the goal is to get the vaccine to as many people as they can before the worst over.'
Shouldn't the goal be to get the vaccine out to people before the flu hits?
And still these bean counters keep their jobs.
Only in Canada you say. Pity.
AR

[Birgit Fearon]

They are not testing people anymore for the virus. My family, especially my oldest daughter and husband were very sick with all the symptoms. They were told it mostly likely is swine flu but unless you are critically ill or in the high risk group they don't normally test anymore. It would probably put to much of a load on the labs to test everyone that thinks they might have it. So, basically you can't get confirmation. It is early for flu season so if you come down with it early like my family did a few weeks ago it most likely is swine flu. Symptoms were fever, bad cough, congestion, very tired, feeling unwell, a bit of a soar throat. My younger daughter and I had more mild symptoms and very low grade fever. I don't know why it affected us differently?

[KEMMER]

I've never had a flu shot and I won't be getting the swine flu vaccine. The scientists in vancouver studied flu vaccines and said that if you get your shot you have a 50 percent greater chance of getting the flu the next time around due to the weakening of the immune system from the shot. Why won't they tell you about that? CASH GRAB EVIL GOV'T !!!

[A. Boyd]

We are dealing with much lack of knowledge by experts, some not anyone's fault. More use of % and ratios by area, sex, population of an area etc. would be useful in assessing spread, intensity, etc of swine flu and preventing anxiety and even panic.