H1N1 Not So Deadly After All . . .

December 11, 2009 1:30pm by Barry Ritholtz

Back in October, we discussed what I described as an over reaction to Swine flu: H1N1 Fatality Rates: Overreaction?

Many of the comments disagreed.

The WSJ reports today that 1 in 6 Americans were exposed to H1N1, and of those “47 million Americans who were sickened with swine flu from April to mid-November, 9,820 of them died.”

I am certainly not an immunologist or a medical doctor; rather, the point was to show how we all tend to over react to current news, and allow older but valid (and often more accurate) data to be ignored.

For you students of investing psychology, this was another example of the Recency effect at work . . .

Chart via Information is Beautiful

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