Flu Attacks The U.S.
This article was written by Alex Perez of ABC World News. The link to the
article is
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/hospitals-flooded-flu-patients-turn-chicago/story?id=18167245
and it also contains several videos from ABC News on the countrywide outbreak
of the flu. The article focuses mainly on the cities of Boston and Chicago and
the number of people being infected with influenza.
The Flu season has hit early and it has hit really hard. Earlier this week
Boston Mayor Thomas Menino declared a public health emergency for the city as
the 700th case of the season was just reported. At this point last year there
were only 70 reported cases of the flu and only 400 total in the city of
Boston. "This is the worst flu season we've seen since 2009, and people
should take the threat of flu seriously," said Menino. So far there have
been four deaths (all seniors) and there have been over 6,000 cases in
Massachusetts alone.
Chicago is facing similar problems. Northwestern Memorial Hospital has seen
a spike of 20 percent in patients with the flu from last year. On Monday and
Tuesday it was on bypass and had to ask ambulances to bring patients elsewhere
if possible because of the overcrowding. Currently across the state of Illinois
there have been five deaths due to influenza with another 150 patients in
intensive care. According to Dr. Richard Besser, ABC News Chief Medical Editor,
this is the earliest flu season has hit in a decade. He said, "You have to
think about an anti-viral, especially if you're elderly, a young child, a
pregnant woman, they're the people that are going to die from this. Tens of
thousands of people die in a bad flu season. We're not taking it serious
enough." As a result of the increase in the number of cases many areas
have a shortage on flu shots and are struggling to get enough of the vaccine to
some places.
This article really appealed to me for many reasons. I liked how it was
informative for me as the Boston area has been heavily affected by the flu. It
also expands into talking about the countrywide outbreak and how bad it
actually is. It also really opened my eyes because I never really thought that
people died from the flu and that death only occurred rarely. I guess I was
under the impression that everyone got the vaccine and just wouldn't get it. In
my mind the assortment of videos that go with the article are really good as
well because they provide more statistics and facts about the current outbreak.
I found this article to be extremely interesting and easy to relate to. It seems as though everywhere you go there are people coughing and getting sick. I think in years past many of us considered the flu to just be a bad cold, never did we consider it to be as vicious and deadly as its been this year. I found the numbers to be astonishing, the article says “the 700th flu case of the season was just reported. At this point last year there were only 70 reported cases of the flu.” I wonder what is causing the number of flu cases to be so high this year. It seems as though even people who got the vaccination are coming down with the flu. My little cousin was hospitalized just last week with the flu. Seeing that many people are being brought to the hospital and even dying of the flu just opens my eyes to how serious this sickness really is.
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