Posted on 01/27/2020 9:21:51 PM PST by nuconvert
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 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 — in the worst year — 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. It was mostly over by the end of March, although some flu continued to circulate.
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 save lives.
“I’d like to see more people get vaccinated,” Redfield told the AP at an event in New York. “We lost 80,000 people last year to the flu.”
(Excerpt) Read more at statnews.com ...
How many people even remember this?
If this bug gets stateside and a foothold, those numbers will be weekly.
There's no money in it for pharmaceuticals, but imagine if doing something as stupid as vaping some propylene glycol could significantly reduce flu deaths.
And I'm not a fan of vaping. The link references a 1942 study, but studies since then don't really address the effectiveness of this. There don't seem to be any human trials. And the other chemicals are probably harmful, but..
There are studies that speculate that propylene glycol could make people more susceptible to the flu. But I don't see any human trials. I don't see any follow up studies to the original 1942 one. (Not that I'm an expert researcher.)
“If this bug gets stateside and a foothold, those numbers will be weekly.”
Until more data comes out, no one knows at this point the potential of this virus. I doubt the doomsday scenario, but will keep an open mind and be vigilant.
I had that flu last April. One of the sickest I have ever been. It was horrible. Missed over a week of work and did not get out of bed except to use the restroom.
By the way, apparently propylene glycol is actually used in vaccines to inactivate the flu virus. Which gives some credence to the 1942 study.
I did say ‘if’.
It’s certainly doomsday in China right now.
SARS didn’t do this to China.
And I work in a hospital..and I've not seen the cause of death being the flu.
China could lose half its population and still be over crowded, India too. Both cesspools ripe for pandemic. I’d like to think we can better control here, if we have stomach to issue quarantines. Starting with all travel from China.
but we've kept so many unhealthy people alive that normally would have died and its this group that gets hit hardest, NATURALLY.....
I do! I had it and just DAM! Three months of hacking and coughing after I got over it.
The only way I got over it was to go out in the coldest air I could and walk and get that cool air into my lungs.
Exactly my point.
All this hand wringing for the Coronavirus seems way over the top.
I could be proven wrong yet. We’ll see.
Yeah, worst flu season and they F’ed up on the flu vaccine. This news is not bloody gruesome enough for the MSM.
I stopped vaping when I read that one of the ingredients was propolene glycol. I thought there was no sense in inhaling antifreeze. But apparently there is if you have the flu.
So far 106 deaths have been reported. Every death is horrible, but we don’t know yet whether this will be a major pandemic, or another viral outbreak with deaths. SARS caused ~745 deaths. Ebola, in the two year outbreak involving Guinea, Liberia, and Siera Leone killed 11,310. It’s all bad, but hopefully won’ be as bad as is being projected.
CDC estimates everything. Usually indirectly.
Propylene glycol is used as a food additive and as a vehicle for topical, oral and some intravenous pharmaceutical preparations. It has a very low toxicity.
We are older do we die easier
China has about the same population density as Europe
China has about the same population density as Europe
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