Flu Reaches Epidemic Levels, California Among States Hit Hardest CBS Los Angeles CBS Los Angeles

[yuiyoshida]

[Kablooie]

1. God is really beating us up out here this year.

Maybe he really is an evangelical Republican.

[Sophia4]

2. But then Texas and Florida? Not exactly free-thinking Democratic states.

Why don't Americans get flu shots?

[democratisphere]

4. Because apparently they don't work, specially with this strain if the flu.

[Nitram]

6. 30% effectiveness doesn't mean it "doesn't work." It means it's not a effective as usual.

Even if it doesn't eliminate the chances of getting the flu, it can reduce the severity of the disease if you do get it. What can you lose?

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. 60,000 cases out of a population of 323 million?

That feels like a very low threshold for the definition of epidemic. Heck, even if it's 60,000 in California alone, we're still talking well under 1 percent of the population.

I hate to sound cavalier, but as bad as the flu can be, the numbers just aren't that awful.

Added on edit:

The CDC has been telling the public for nearly a decade that an estimated 36,000 people die from influenza in the U.S. every year. This number is grossly inaccurate as it includes not just influenza death cases, but also other respiratory, circulatory, cardiac and pulmonary deaths that potentially might have been associated with influenza
A review of Vital Statistics data shows that since 1940, the highest number of influenza deaths recorded in a single year was 21,047 deaths in 1941. In fact, the mortality rate from influenza was not rising in the late 20th century – as the CDC has alleged. It was dropping.
There were only between 600 and 750 influenza deaths recorded annually between 1995 and 1997. The most influenza deaths recorded in a single year since 1979 was about 2,900 deaths and that was in 2009, the H1N1 swine flu pandemic year! Yet CDC policymakers, along with drug company and medical trade association lobbyists have continuously been using inflated influenza hospitalization and mortality estimates to justify expanding the influenza vaccine market
CDC does not require states to report individual seasonal flu cases or deaths of people older than 18 years of age. The CDC is not collecting the information they need to accurately assess influenza morbidity and mortality in the U.S.

What that means is that the danger from influenza is vastly overstated.

[torius]

5. Over 30,000 gun deaths

every year and nothing is done about it at all, Congress and our Presidunce condone it... makes you wonder.

[tomhagen]

7. Is Chump allowed Disease Management to be Science Based???