80,000 died of the flu last winter in the U.S., the highest death count in decades | Los Angeles Times
“Blind trust in authority
is the greatest enemy of the truth.”
– Albert Einstein
***
Via La Times :
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
SEP. 26, 2018
4:10 PM
Reporting from New York — An estimated 80,000 Americans died of flu and its complications last winter — the disease’s highest death toll in at least four decades.
The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Robert Redfield, revealed the total in an interview Tuesday night with the Associated Press.
Flu experts knew it was a very bad season, but at least one found the size of the estimate surprising.
“That’s huge,” said Dr. William Schaffner, a Vanderbilt University vaccine expert. The tally was nearly twice as much as what health officials previously considered a bad year, he said.
In recent years, flu-related deaths have ranged from about 12,000 to 56,000, according to the CDC.
Last fall and winter, the U.S. went through one of the most severe flu seasons in recent memory. It was driven by a kind of flu that tends to put more people in the hospital and cause more deaths, particularly among young children and the elderly.
The season peaked in early February and was mostly over by the end of March.
Making a bad year worse, the flu vaccine didn’t work very well. Experts nevertheless say vaccination is still worth it because it makes illnesses less severe and saves lives.
“I’d like to see more people get vaccinated,” Redfield said. “We lost 80,000 people last year to the flu.”
CDC officials do not have exact counts of how many people die from flu each year. Flu is so common that not all flu cases are reported, and flu is not always listed on death certificates. So the CDC uses statistical models, which are periodically revised, to make estimates.
Fatal complications from the flu can include pneumonia, stroke and heart attack.
CDC officials called the 80,000 figure preliminary, and said it may still be revised. But they said it is not expected to go down.
The figure eclipses the estimates for every flu season going back to the winter of 1976-77. Estimates for many earlier seasons were not readily available.
Last winter was not the worst flu season on record. The 1918 flu pandemic, which lasted nearly two years, killed more than 500,000 Americans, historians estimate.
It’s not easy to compare flu seasons through history, partly because the nation’s population is changing. There are more Americans — and more elderly Americans — today than in decades past, noted Dr. Daniel Jernigan, a CDC flu expert.
U.S. health officials on Thursday are scheduled to hold a media event in Washington to stress the importance of vaccinations to protect against whatever flu circulates this winter.
And how bad is it going to be? So far, the flu that’s been detected is a milder strain, and early signs are that the vaccine is shaping up to be a good match, Jernigan said.
The makeup of the vaccine has been changed this year to try to better protect against expected strains.
***
SEE also :
FOR the latest AU government information on COVID19 :
***
MEANWHILE, the weather back in the NH winter season of 2017/18 …
*
IT certainly was a brutal 2017/18 winter in the U.S. and globally:
NEW YORK, NY – DECEMBER 27: Two women take a selfie photo in front of a frozen fountain in Bryant Park on a frigid day in Manhattan on December 27, 2017 in New York City. Dangerously low temperatures and wind chills the central and eastern United States are making outdoor activity difficult for many Americans. Little relief from the below normal temperatures is expected the first week of the New Year. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Temperatures plummet to -37C as US is hit by record Arctic freeze
Temperatures have plummeted to -37C as the US Midwest and Northeast is hit by a record Arctic blast.
Cold weather records were set from Arkansas to Maine on Thursday and the freezing air is expected to last through the weekend and reach as far south as Texas and the Florida Panhandle.
In New Hampshire, the cold set a record for the day of -37C on Mount Washington.
An investigation has been launched by the humane society after a dog was found “frozen solid” on the porch of a home in Toledo, Ohio.
Temperatures plummet to -37C as US is hit by record Arctic freeze | SKY News
*
It’s so cold in the US that sharks are freezing to death
In Massachusetts, the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy found three thresher sharks washed up in Cape Cod, “stranded due to cold shock,” which can cause cardiac arrest in animals.
The conservancy collected tissue samples from the sharks that will be examined “once they thaw.”
“We hauled the shark off the beach and it is currently thawing at NOAA Fisheries Service to be dissected later,” the group wrote on Facebook about the latest shark discovery. “A true sharkcicle!”
Atlantic White Shark Conservancy – Posts
*
80,000 died of the flu last winter in the U.S., the highest death count in decades | Los Angeles Times
Warming fears are the “Worst scientific scandal in the history. When people come to
know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.” – UN IPCC
Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical
chemist.
***
IMAGINE the howls and screams from the Climate Crisis Industry if “global cooling” was the fashionable eco-scare of the day?
THE deaths of 80,000 would be weaponised and blamed squarely on the wicked ways of humans, providing ample evidence to impose draconian, global climate change policy.
*
IT certainly was a brutal 2017/18 winter in the U.S. and globally:
NEW YORK, NY – DECEMBER 27: Two women take a selfie photo in front of a frozen fountain in Bryant Park on a frigid day in Manhattan on December 27, 2017 in New York City. Dangerously low temperatures and wind chills the central and eastern United States are making outdoor activity difficult for many Americans. Little relief from the below normal temperatures is expected the first week of the New Year. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Temperatures plummet to -37C as US is hit by record Arctic freeze
Temperatures have plummeted to -37C as the US Midwest and Northeast is hit by a record Arctic blast.
Cold weather records were set from Arkansas to Maine on Thursday and the freezing air is expected to last through the weekend and reach as far south as Texas and the Florida Panhandle.
In New Hampshire, the cold set a record for the day of -37C on Mount Washington.
An investigation has been launched by the humane society after a dog was found “frozen solid” on the porch of a home in Toledo, Ohio.
Temperatures plummet to -37C as US is hit by record Arctic freeze | SKY News
*
It’s so cold in the US that sharks are freezing to death
In Massachusetts, the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy found three thresher sharks washed up in Cape Cod, “stranded due to cold shock,” which can cause cardiac arrest in animals.
The conservancy collected tissue samples from the sharks that will be examined “once they thaw.”
“We hauled the shark off the beach and it is currently thawing at NOAA Fisheries Service to be dissected later,” the group wrote on Facebook about the latest shark discovery. “A true sharkcicle!”
Atlantic White Shark Conservancy – Posts
*
Climatism RSS Feed
Eat less; move more; live longer
A new look at the Wind Industry
ex-OSA staffmember works to reform the subject of Scientology
Exegesis Hermeneutics Flux Capacitor of Truthiness
for those who dream of metaphysical crepes
Politische Beiträge und philosophische Essays
FOR 4.5Bn YEARS CLIMATE & TEMPERATURE HAVE CHANGED Without MANKIND'S INPUT! - Driven by The SUN, PLATE TECTONICS & VOLCANIC ACTION but NOT MANKIND
Conservative Christian and Political Opinion Site. exposing corruption in the church and politics.
The Truth Never Dies
Welcome to an expanding worldview
bildende Künstlerin in Baden bei Wien
Wind Turbine Locations, Maps, Lawsuits, Setbacks
unlimited interests - #Love #Earth #community
Organic Gardening tips
Opinions and analysis of everything under the sun.
Recent Comments