An Enigma: Transmission Of Epidemic Influenza (part 9)

I attempt to shed light on the riddle that is seasonal influenza using my bag of spanners. Today I wield the spanner of ARIMA and bring it down on mortality estimates for males

I must be going soft in the head – eight articles baked and no sign of time series modelling using my big spanner! I better get the kettle on and correct the situation without delay. Yes, we’re going to have to face some brain-numbing tables together, but I shall start with a simple summary of the story so far.

I think by now most readers will have realised that the 1918-19 ‘Spanish Flu’ event sticks out as being pretty darn unusual. So darn unusual, in fact, that I don’t buy the story of a novel serotype of influenza A hitting the global population and causing all that death all on its own. My nose smells something fishy and my gut is rumbling that there’s more to this story than meets the eye.

Take Two Aspirin

Take aspirin for instance. It was a rather clued-up consultant cardiac anaesthetist quite a few years ago now who first alerted me to the potential role of aspirin overdose in creating excess casualties back then; but don’t take my word for it… have a dig in the PubMed dirt yours…