CBS: 2018 flu season appears to hit deadly peak
This year's flu season has been dominated by a particularly nasty bug, and health officials say it has now reached almost every corner of the country. In a press conference on Friday morning, the CDC says flu season appears to be peaking.
"We saw that the season started earlier back in November and has had a really rapid rise and is probably peaking right about now," said Dr. Dan Jernigan, M.D., Captain of U.S. Public Health Service and Director of the Influenza Division at the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. "Flu is everywhere in the United States right now ... There's lots of flu in lots of places."
Flu is now widespread in every state except Hawaii. It has reached epidemic levels, which it does every year, Jernigan said.
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WNU Editor: Took my mother yesterday to the clinic to have her yearly check-up and to renew her prescriptions. The place was packed with people suffering from the flu. My brother lives in California .... and he has been sick for a month. Family in Russia and Ukraine are telling me the same thing .... so yes .... it is a nasty flu season this year.
5 comments:
My brother, 83, was had illness at xmas and went to ER. They tested him for flu. They were testing everyone for flu.
I didn't even know that flu testing was normal. He did not have the flu.
He had a flu shot.
I have heard that flu shots were minimally effective this season. What I would like to know is what medical professionals knew about this year's risk and whether they changed the way they looked for and treated the flu virus.
A few years ago the shot contained anti virulent for three expected types of flu for that year. None of the three came.
This year the shot is for 4 types.
In the past I have read that they had put in two types and calculated they had a 50/50 chance of getting it right.
I got the damn shot after being pestered by spouse and health care professionals. I'll take the 50% odds (the needles not so much) and figure it is a good insurance policy.
I think the mere act of vaccinating against one strain opens up opportunities for other strains to grow, where they would not before.
www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/vaccine/quadrivalent.htm
"Some hospitals in California have been so overwhelmed that they had to send patients to other ERs."
California reminds me of a BRIC country like Brasil, with a lot of high tech, industry, and some rich and middle class mixed in with a lot of poor.
It didn't have to be that way.
Friends do not let friends vote Democrat.
"Flu season is shaping up as one of the worst in years, officials say"
www.statnews.com/2018/01/12/flu-season-cdc/\
The H3N2 component of the flu vaccine is 10% effective.
Read the 3rd, 4th & 5th form last paragraphs.
They imply that, while the vaccine was 10% effective in Australia, it might be 34% effective in the US.S.
Did they tweak it?
Maybe it is more that there are substrains. The American population cannot be much different than the Australian one.
I assume 10% means full protection. Maybe there is another significant percentage that is partially protected and won't get as sick for as long? One can hope.
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