Peacenik drove Peacenik's son, Peacenik Jr. to Peacenik Jr.'s music lesson last night. On the way there Peacenik Jr. declared that Peacenik Jr. thought that...cough.....cough....Peacenik Jr. had the swine flu. Peacenik Jr.looked up swine flu....cough...cough...symptoms on the Internet.
Peacenik Jr. had all the symptoms save two. According to some sources that is pretty conclusive. Peacenik hopes Peacenik Jr. doesn't have swine flu. Peacenik thinks Peacenik Jr. didn't seem sick enough. Does Peacenik Jr. have the swine flu? Has Peacenik been exposed in a closed vehicle to a coughing swine flu victim? Will the swine flu vaccine be available soon enough? Should Peacenik isolate Peacenik's self?
Posted on: October 19, 2009 6:08 AM, by revere
Monday morning, start of week three of the official flu season (which began October 4). CDC's scientific spokeswoman on the flu, Dr. Anne Schuchat has said we are seeing "unprecedented" flu activity for this time of year, including an unusual toll in the pediatric age group. What does "unprecedented" mean? It's not very specific on what precedents are included, but if we confine ourselves to the three years before this one, we can get a good idea of just how unusual this flu season is. This week CDC unveiled a new graphic for their Emerging Infections Program (EIP) (I liked the old one better; this one is not very legible), the component of the surveillance system that tracks laboratory-confirmed influenza-associated hospitalizations in children and adults. It collects data in 60 counties covering 12 metropolitan areas of 10 states (San Francisco CA, Denver CO, New Haven CT, Atlanta GA, Baltimore MD, Minneapolis/St. Paul MN, Albuquerque NM, Las Cruces, NM, Albany NY, Rochester NY, Portland OR, and Nashville TN). It appears CDC has added six new sites (in IA, ID, MI, ND, OK and SD), but the data here are for the original 10 so comparisons can be made. This is a passive surveillance system that reviews hospital laboratory, admissions and infection logs at sites chosen to allow calculation of rates per population in the hospital catchment areas. Here is what the graphic looks like as of last Friday:
Read on...
