“The nation is experiencing an early flu season with high levels of activity concentrated in the south central and southeastern regions at this time.”-U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

New York continues to be a hot spot for influenza.  Onondaga County reports 506 new cases last week, that’s 141 more than the week prior!  Total cases so far for the county is 1,277!

In Main, a six years old girl died from the flu, the first flu death in Main since 2010: “It is very rare for a child that’s healthy to die from the flu, but this is a reminder.”-Sheila Pinette, Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention

Michigan Department of Community Health (MDCH) reporting at least 63 confirmed cases of flu.  Michigan usually doesn’t see that many cases until January or February: “It is a concern to see this many cases this early in the season.”-Angela Minicuci, MDCH

Whats happening in the Great Lakes states is being mirrored across the water in Canada: “Usually we see more cases during January and February, but now we’re seeing it in November and December.”-Hamidah Meghani, Hamilton, Ontario, Associate Medical Officer of Health

Illinois reporting flu season actually started before Thanksgiving: “Loyola documented several cases of the flu before Thanksgiving. It is early to start and also a high number.”-Jorge Parada, Loyola University Health System.

Also, a local Illinois TV news program, along with doctors, are spreading ignorance;  recently a report said doctors at hospitals are taking flu precautions by using anti-bacterial soap. The problem?  Influenza is a virus, not a bacteria, so anti-bacterial soap won’t help prevent flu.  Another issue is that the reports stressed obsessive washing of the hands after touching things like door knobs to prevent flu, here’s the problem with that: “Influenza is a very contagious respiratory disease.”-Tim Uyeki, CDC

In the case of influenza, specifically, it is an airborne pathogen, not a door knob pathogen. To top that, the medical experts are not even sure how people actually catch the flu!  Some studies show that 30% of airborne pathogen infections take place in the building where you work (schools were not looked at, I assume they consider schools the same as “office environment”).  The main cause is possibly dirty filters in the air conditioning system.  However, the majority of infections (flus and colds) are considered “unknown” in origin, by 51%!  So much for all that healthy advise from your officials and the media!

In Missouri, one school district (in Marshfield) is reporting that school attendance has dropped to 85% because of the flu.  School officials did not cancel school because they think kids are safer in school: “We decided if we dismiss school, there’s more likelihood that they would be exposed to the flu away from school than in school. So we decided to stay in school for the last few days of the week before Christmas break.”-Mark Mayo, Superintendent (guess he didn’t do his homework regarding the infection studies, see above)

Montana reporting early flu cases. 31 cases with five hospitalizations so far, and parents say that school is not the safest place to be: “Elementary school is probably a petri dish for all the diseases that kids have….”-Justin Winward, parent

In Georgia, the Coweta County Board of Education sent out letters warning of a “flu like illness” after some schools reported attendance below 90%: “We have no way of knowing whether it’s illness-related or otherwise given the season of the year. But we do know we have had a lot of staff and students out. There are a lot of illnesses out there right now, and we’ve sent home some with flu-like symptoms.”-Sally Millians, school system’s head nurse

In Colorado, on 11 December a woman died from the flu. Hospitalizations have also gone up, including children.  There are more than 100 cases: “It started early this year. Often we’re seeing more flu in January and February. We actually have been seeing some since October.”-Christine Darr, Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children

In Ohio,  the flu status has been upgraded (downgraded?) to “widespread”.  State and local health officials are reporting a sudden increase in flu related hospitalizations, in just the past several days.

In Texas, children’s health officials are reporting increased cases of flu B: “Flu peaks around mid-February, and if you look at the country as a whole, we’re already seeing 25% of the kids with a febrile illness testing positive for flu.”-Pat Crocker, Dell Children’s Medical Center

In Kansas, in Sedgwick County, a stomach ‘flu’ is being reported.  Health officials don’t really know why the sudden increase in stomach flu cases, but they blame the holidays: “People are socializing a lot during the holidays, so there’s a lot of hand-shaking and sharing food. There are just a lot of friends and family gathering together.”-Claudia Blackburn, Sedgwick County Health Department.

The National Institutes of Health has put on hold their attempts to modify a deadly form of bird flu (H5N1).   This was to create new guidelines for such experiments.

But, no need for the experiments, Mother Nature taking care of that. Indonesia has seen its 160th death this season, when a four years old boy died.  He showed symptoms of H5N1 on 30 November and died on 06 December.  Health officials are blaming the birds around his family’s house, yet no one else in the family is sick.

Indonesia is dealing with what their health officials suspect is a new form of H5N1.  Last week, on the main island of Java, hundreds of thousands of ducks died from the new H5N1.  They think the virus came from imported ducks from other parts of Asia.

But wait, there’s more!  In the regency of Bantul, province of Yogyakarta, Indonesia, over the past two months thousands of chickens died, really fast like without showing any symptoms: “They still looked healthy in the evening. Then the next morning, they would suddenly die with their heads turning red.”-Sumarwanto, resident

In the landlocked nation of Nepal, people destroyed shipments of chicken from India. The chicken was for KFC restaurants in Nepal.  The people were afraid the chicken was infected with H5N1.  The Nepalese government banned chicken from India because of bird flu.  KFC swears the chicken comes from Brazil, but police say the truck manifest indicated the chicken was coming from India.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration just approved a new flu vaccine. It’s a new “four strain” vaccine as opposed to the older three strain shots.   This comes at a time when there are more studies that show vaccines do not work!

Check this report for more details about how vaccines do not work, and how some countries are accusing the whole vaccine industry of being in it just for the money.

There are reports of Tamiflu shortages in some parts of the United States, but so what, it’s possible it doesn’t work anyway, and scientists have known since 2009: “….some researchers claim there is little evidence it works and have lobbied since 2009 for Roche to hand over all its data from clinical trials.”–Reuters

How about some history to show that all the efforts of modern medicine have been for naught?  Since the 1918 flu pandemic there has been massive efforts by governments to prevent the spread of flu, that’s 94 years of vaccines and washing your hands!  Yet, according to the American Lung Association: “Each year in the U.S., influenza and its related complications result in an estimated 226,000 hospitalizations and anywhere from around 3,000 to 49,000 deaths.”

Obviously it hasn’t worked! We’ve just been lucky enough not to get hit with something like the 1918 flu pandemic!