This is an Amalga-created graph of flu seasons in Washington, D.C. from 2002 to 2009.
ILI stands for “Influenza-Like-Illness,” meaning that this includes everybody who shows up at the hospital primarily for symptoms of flu.
For each year, January 1 is at the left side of the screen and December 31 is at the right. Historically, the “flu season” has a small bump in the fall, with the serious spike usually beginning early in January and extending into the beginning of March.
It’s instantly apparent that this year is unprecedented in recent history. Long before the typical spike season we are already seeing more cases than we’ve ever seen — and presumably the worst is yet to come. Although the graph is a bit difficult to see, that line shooting up is the number of ILI-related hospital visits right now.
This material is from the Freakonomics blog ( http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/on-the-prevalance-of-h1n1/ ) by Stephen Dubner, who can be contacted at levittdubner@freakonomics.com .
This is well worth reading.
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