H7N9: Zhejiang in 50 cases...

Click on image to enlarge.

A quick look at the same number of cases (50) during the same period of time (2-months) in Zhejiang province, across 2-years. In 2014, between 23-Nov to 23-Jan, H7N9 case numbers surpassed 50 whereas in 2013 H7N9 cases did not reach 50 during the 1st wave.

Back on the 23-Jan it did not look like it would make it. Things move fast in influenza-town and prediction is a mug's game.

All a bit arbitrary, yet it is another indicator in addition to starting earlier and from more provinces than in March 2013, that H7N9 case numbers will be higher in 2014 than we saw last year and may well tear through the human case tally for that other "bird flu", H5N1.

As @influenza_bio noted on twitter this evening, there have been a lot of farmers listed in the FluTrackers case list of late.

A quick tabulation shows that 9.5% of FT cases between #1 & #137 have "farmer" in their description while none do between #139 & #177. However, 33.3% of the cases between #178 & #274 are described as farmers. What type of farmer, and how thoroughly this description was initially reported in the provincial media release is completely unknown so take this paragraph with a big grain of chicken salt.

There have been 6 new H7N9 cases added tonight, so far including 2 deaths, one among the new list and 1 of a previously reported case.