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State at bottom of flu thermometer
By Mark Andersen Lee Enterprises
Monday, Feb 01, 2010 - 10:06:11 am CST
LINCOLN -- For two weeks in a row, no state has had less flu circulating than Nebraska.
Two weeks ago, Nebraska had the fewest flu cases of all the states.
Last week, Oregon and Idaho joined Nebraska as nearly flu-free states, according to Friday?s report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Does this mean the flu threat has passed? For both H1N1 flu and seasonal flu?
?No,? says Tim Timmons of the Lincoln-Lancaster County Health Department. And then he repeats it emphatically: ?No!?
?Remember last year?? he asks. ?Seasonal flu didn?t show up ?til February.?
Flu season runs through April, which is when local flu outbreaks tapered off in both 2008 and 2009.
And H1N1 flu is pandemic flu, capable of rewriting the rules, he adds. It may appear this spring or later.
?We had lots of it last summer,? Timmons says.
He urges people who haven?t been vaccinated for either flu strain to see this as the lull before who knows what.
?We don?t know if H1N1 will come back,? he says.
But if you get vaccinated against it, then it doesn?t matter.
Unlike last fall, there?s no shortage of vaccine. It?s widely available at clinics, pharmacies and health departments.
And seasonal flu, Timmons emphasizes, is still likely to show up this year.
National CDC estimates of the H1N1 pandemic between April and Dec. 12, 2009: around 55 million people infected, around 246,000 H1N1-related hospitalizations and around 11,160 H1N1-related deaths.
By Mark Andersen Lee Enterprises
Monday, Feb 01, 2010 - 10:06:11 am CST
LINCOLN -- For two weeks in a row, no state has had less flu circulating than Nebraska.
Two weeks ago, Nebraska had the fewest flu cases of all the states.
Last week, Oregon and Idaho joined Nebraska as nearly flu-free states, according to Friday?s report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Does this mean the flu threat has passed? For both H1N1 flu and seasonal flu?
?No,? says Tim Timmons of the Lincoln-Lancaster County Health Department. And then he repeats it emphatically: ?No!?
?Remember last year?? he asks. ?Seasonal flu didn?t show up ?til February.?
Flu season runs through April, which is when local flu outbreaks tapered off in both 2008 and 2009.
And H1N1 flu is pandemic flu, capable of rewriting the rules, he adds. It may appear this spring or later.
?We had lots of it last summer,? Timmons says.
He urges people who haven?t been vaccinated for either flu strain to see this as the lull before who knows what.
?We don?t know if H1N1 will come back,? he says.
But if you get vaccinated against it, then it doesn?t matter.
Unlike last fall, there?s no shortage of vaccine. It?s widely available at clinics, pharmacies and health departments.
And seasonal flu, Timmons emphasizes, is still likely to show up this year.
National CDC estimates of the H1N1 pandemic between April and Dec. 12, 2009: around 55 million people infected, around 246,000 H1N1-related hospitalizations and around 11,160 H1N1-related deaths.
