It isn't too late to get vaccinated if you haven't already. Although the vaccine isn't 100% effective, it's better than nothing and is recommended for people with chronic illnesses such as asthma, compromised immune systems, and the elderly. Though it takes two weeks to reach its full effect, the vaccine begins working the same day it is administered. Also, wash your hands frequently, use hand sanitizer, and STAY HOME from work or school if you're sick.

I am surprised that we don't have cameras in the bathrooms to make sure people wash their hands. I bet that is buried somewhere in the Obama healthcare agenda! Everyone that doesn't wash their hands should undergo a background check on how often they wash!

I think it's interesting that there was no media hype this year about the flu (remember H1N1 and SARS?), and yet this year is far worse than when we were worried about it.

Can we see some real data on how many people got the flu that got the vaccine, and how many of those that died got the vaccine too? The reason you didn't see as much hype this time around as the H1N1 is there wasn't a stock pile of vaccines in the trucks ready to get shipped out and sold after the hysteria is first stirred up by the mockingbird media.

Things could get quite a bit scarier if the swine flu and avian flu viruses join hands. Avian flu has a 60% kill rate.

There's really no end to the fear mongering is there? C'mon with all the people getting flu shots after all the media agitation propaganda why isn't the flu going dowwwwn???? All winter long folks, and probably ratcheted up each year, all winter long, flu, fear, flu, fear til soon yes, there will be cameras in bathrooms and germ scanners at every public entryway. My God what are we coming to?????!!!!!!!

Well go ahead and talk about this flu being all media hype and don't bother getting the flu shot, but I've got a 9 year old in Children's Hospital fighting off flu and pneumonia with a 103 degree fever. Guess what, she didn't get a flu shot this year, but she will be getting one every year from now on!

I would have appreciated knowing of the 60 deaths so far how many of them had not taken the flu shot. Any guesses?

motionbased: Histrionic much? We have in the recent past forcibly incarcerated (quarantined) people with tuberculosis; in some states required that couples be tested for syphilis before being granted a marriage license; that women seeking a marriage license have medical proof in the form of a blood test as to their rubella titer even though the wouldn't actually deny the marriage license if you hadn't had German measles, mandated silver nitrate drops in newborns' eyes to prevent blindness from maternal gonorrhea,routinely circumcised male babies,required immunizations to attend public schools--need I go on?

The simple unassailable truth is: the more people wash their hands and conscientiously cover their coughs, the fewer the number of people who die. This isn't hype or hysteria; it's the truth. Even if the vaccine is only 62% effective, on a compounded basis, thousands of lives are saved every year. It's a free country, nobody forces anybody to help anyone else, but it's really not asking much.