You know, you made thing about something. We were in Florida about a month ago when that really freakish cold snap hit, it got cold even in way south florida, wonder if Mexico got really cold and the flu (being as the conditions were right) spread like crazy to a populace unaccustomed to it?
There are some truly strange variables at work. For instance, a while back, the British made the utterly weird correlation between cold feet and the cold virus.
http://www.medpagetoday.com/InfectiousDisease/URItheFlu/2136
“Dr. Eccles said the results of a randomized study bear out a two-pronged hypothesis: that many of us carry around a subclinical cold infection and that chilling the feet opens the door for it to become a full-blown cold.”
Later, it has been discovered that the human body has “backwaters”, where viruses may reside for years, almost in hibernation. It is known that the chickenpox virus does this, sometimes reemerging in middle age as shingles. The same with the polio virus, notorious for again victimizing its childhood victims when they are older, after decades of dormancy.
So why not influenza? Again, the flip side is the immune system, and how it maintains control over pathogenic viruses. But then for some reason, suddenly relinquishes that control, allowing them to reemerge.