Flu.
Funny thing, flu.
H1N1 scared hell out of a lot of people last spring.
Media reported death counts with enthusiasm.
"900 people killed by Swine Flu!"
For the season.
While plain old flu kills up to 500,000 people worldwide in a single year.
Quarter million deaths is considered on the low end of normal for flu season.
Interestingly enough, the CDC has decided to track H1N1 like the do with plain ol garden-variety flu.
Seems there was a problem with the numbers.
As in, they weren't accurate from Day One.
Progress.
What upsets me most about those 250K old-fashioned flu fatalities is a lot of them could be prevented by the now-dead having taken a flu shot when the opportunity was there.
H1N1's got this little trick, where it seems to go after healthy kids more often than healthy adults.
But the vaccines are here, finally.
I'm a little creeped out that the nasal spray-mist vaccine is using live virus--its genetically modified to minimize the symptoms of the illness, but still.
Still.
Still, it's a relatively mild bug--seems that the biggest harm is that it leaves the victim wide open for secondary infections.
Like wild flaming pnemonia.
Lung-ripping bronchitis.
That sort of thing.
So, against that backdrop, we have here in the Philadelphia region the first seasonal round of colds showing up in the office.
Get on a train, half the people are sniffling.
The guy two seats in front sneezes, the rest of the car gets....weird.
Folks start looking around for new seats.
On the outside of the train.
Guy in the office was out a couple weeks ago.
For about a week.
"He's really sick," went the rumor mill.
"Heard it's pnemonia."
Etc.
So when the guy comes back in the office by Friday of that week...
Either it was a mild case of pneumonia or.....
You guessed it.
Two weeks later, he's out again.
Flu.
I'd mandate the damn flu shots, if I could.
