[DWPittelli]

This certainly bears watching. That said, it sounds like only weakened (old, young, malnourished and poor) people are dying, whereas in 1918 many extremely robust young soldiers died.

[ex-Texan]

I heard about this flu epidemic last week. This will travel around the world rapidly if it gets beyod Madagascar.

Health care workers will have tobe carefully screened.

[sawsalimb]

Influenza nearly killed me about 15 years ago. I caught a dose of the strain that was going around that year. I thought initially that I had a cold,and went home to sleep it off.

The next morning when I woke up,I was on my back,and there was so much goop in my lungs that my first breath triggered my gag reflex,and I started throwing up. Unfortunately,I was too weak to turn over immediately.

Of all the ignominius ways to check out,drowning in your own puke in your own bed is probably pretty high up on the list-finally I managed to turn over and get some air in my lungs,but I was quite literally a few seconds away from choking to death. The lesson is TAKE THE FLU SERIOUSLY!!!

[maxwellp]

About five years, as antique dealers, we bought some items that were wrapped in old newspapers from the 1900's. I'm a great reader of anything and was reading something from 1919 that spoke of a great flu (or something) outbreak that killed thousands and thousands of folks and one sentence remains with me that went something like this: "This could be nature's way of keeping the population under control". Does anyone on FR know anything about "nature's way of keeping the population under control"?

I live in Central New York State and a few years ago numerous dead squirrels were being spotted along roads. They were not hit by cars - they were just dead - no blood or injuries - laying along side of roads. There never was an explanation for the dead squirrels. I was quite a few of them myself. Too many squirrels and nature took over?

I usually don't take a Flu shot, but may consider one this year.