Medical clinics inundated as flu, air pollution invade W. Wash.
TACOMA, Wash. - A one-two medical punch is taking its toll on patients and doctors in Pierce County and across the state - bad air quality and a severe flu outbreak.
According to the state Department of Health, the latest statistics show that more people are catching and spreading the flu throughout Washington state.
A lot more are just feeling awful - whether from the flu or another one of the bugs that are making the rounds.
"I think that I had the flu because I threw up," says Kenny Deal of Tacoma.
While Deal was not officially diagnosed with the flu, he's one of thousands of Washingtonians suffering from illness.
The most recent information from the state Department of Health blames flu-like sicknesses for 420 emergency room visits in Western Washington alone during a one-week period.
"The shaking, chills, sweats, achy bones, achy body - that's what we experienced with my grandson," says Karima Alladin of Tacoma.
She thinks she was able able to stave it off because she was proactive.
"I got the flu shot right away - as soon as I heard there was an outbreak," says Alladin. "I heard so many people were getting it."
According to the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department, so many people were sick with flu symptoms recently that two Pierce County hospitals reached their capacity for new admissions.
"From all the news reports ... it's almost an epidemic throughout the whole country," says Jim Deal of Tacoma.
And if it seems like something "is in the air".... it gets worse. The air itself is bad in some places.
"People who have asthma, difficulty breathing, heart and lung problems could very well see a difference in their condition, could be downgraded right now," says Joanne Todd of the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency.
The agency says the air is stagnant and has declared burn bans in Western Washington.
When it comes to being sick - the only option for Karima Alladin's grandson was to wait it out.
"Give him a lot of love ... and chicken soup," she says.
The latest health statistics show that 12 people have died of the flu statewide since September.
According to the state Department of Health, the latest statistics show that more people are catching and spreading the flu throughout Washington state.
A lot more are just feeling awful - whether from the flu or another one of the bugs that are making the rounds.
"I think that I had the flu because I threw up," says Kenny Deal of Tacoma.
While Deal was not officially diagnosed with the flu, he's one of thousands of Washingtonians suffering from illness.
The most recent information from the state Department of Health blames flu-like sicknesses for 420 emergency room visits in Western Washington alone during a one-week period.
"The shaking, chills, sweats, achy bones, achy body - that's what we experienced with my grandson," says Karima Alladin of Tacoma.
She thinks she was able able to stave it off because she was proactive.
"I got the flu shot right away - as soon as I heard there was an outbreak," says Alladin. "I heard so many people were getting it."
According to the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department, so many people were sick with flu symptoms recently that two Pierce County hospitals reached their capacity for new admissions.
"From all the news reports ... it's almost an epidemic throughout the whole country," says Jim Deal of Tacoma.
And if it seems like something "is in the air".... it gets worse. The air itself is bad in some places.
"People who have asthma, difficulty breathing, heart and lung problems could very well see a difference in their condition, could be downgraded right now," says Joanne Todd of the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency.
The agency says the air is stagnant and has declared burn bans in Western Washington.
When it comes to being sick - the only option for Karima Alladin's grandson was to wait it out.
"Give him a lot of love ... and chicken soup," she says.
The latest health statistics show that 12 people have died of the flu statewide since September.
I have not had a flu shot in almost twenty years....and cant remember the last time i had anything other than a cold....go figure..
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air pollution?? Does that include Fukushima debris dust?? Â Â I just bought a dosimeter/geiger unit. Â
Fall City yesterdayÂ
https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/14855_201211176685206_1488152027_n.jpg
B-Ham yesterday
https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/66440_201211793351811_1167368927_n.jpg
Radiation study -Â http://www.ianfairlie.org/news/recent-evidence-on-the-risks-of-very-low-level-radiation/
Some days I ask my self WHERE do some of these people come from? <sigh>
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@Chloe Fish Spammer, I have reported you.
you know what?t I didn't get a shot and I have been around many who have flu and only had the sniffs for one day. Proactive is right, if you aren't being dat,  you ain't follering the BS.
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I think you are all crazy if you believe the shot will save you. Do, please, educate yourself about all the dangers and misseddirtdetection of the push to ooze som e flooze into your vein, I meaning this PUSH to VACCINATE. BS!
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I would start with wnho dot org, dr MArtini and look up true story of polio.
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According to this document http://www.doh.wa.gov/Portals/1/Documents/5100/fluupdate.pdf , from the DOH, yes... 420 visited the emergency room with "flu-like" illnesses in Western WA last week, out of over 21,000 total hospital visits. In the same document, if I'm reading it right, only about 25% of the total specimens tested are actually influenza, of any of the main types.
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This document is regularly updated and publicly accessible.
 @Joseph Ratliff I was going to question that 420 number as well.  Maybe 420 isn't too uncommon?  The article doesn't say.  But thank you for looking up the facts (which KOMO never bothers to include).
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 @Landshark My main problem is in the title of the article, using the word "inundated" implies that what the article is about "inundates" the medical clinics.
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If they can accommodate 21,000 visits... and only 420 of them (less than 2%) are what the article is about... I might have used a different, less "fear based" title.
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But I guess they need more eyeballs, LOL. :)
People are sheep. Â That is all.Â
@The206 "mindless" sheep.....automatons incapable of independent thought...irrational feeding on paranoid mass hysteria...
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except old people - weak immune systems ( flu shot is probably a good idea)..
THAT IS ALL! - NOW GO BACK AND BE SHEEP AND EAT SOME GRASS, DUDE!
CAN I EXCLAMATE IT FURTHER?!
And people wonder why they need the flu vaccine!
I took my last vaccine for flu in 2003 and was sick for two months immmediately after getting it/FT
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I meant FTEA
f that ever again, not by [anyones']  cold dead hands...oooh,
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 @GOCOUGS People dont need the flu vaccine
 @The206  @GOCOUGS If flu vaccines are outlawed then only outlaw epidemiologist will have flu vaccines.
that 1918 flu took off at an airforce base in the midwest. these allopaths have been around now for a good few centuries, playing with the genes and instillng fear as a way to get you to acquiesce
 so chk the facts, mr skull. and look up and about about the true nature of Mr. Doc Pasteur/most everything they push on MSM is inture if you haven't figured it out.
WHY?
that is for tomorrow's studies...
 @The206  @skullcrusher  @GOCOUGS These people felt the same way you did. The 1918 flu pandemic (January 1918 â December 1920)[1] was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic which infected 500 million[2] people across the world, including remote Pacific islands and the Arctic, and killed 20 to 50 million of themâ1 to 3 percent of the world's population[3] at the timeâmaking it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history. My grandma lived through the 1918 flu. She never got the flu again and she said it because of this one strain that went through in 1918. If I was you I would take a shot and continue on with your life.
 @skullcrusher  @The206  @GOCOUGS Fine by me.  I don't need a Flu vaccine.  I exercise, eat vegetables, avoid bad foods, get my vitamin intake and allow my body to do what it was made to do.  Fight viruses and bacteria on its own.  I'm cool not being dependent on some vaccine loaded with who knows what and having to pay a multi-billion dollar for profit corporation to do it.Â
In other news Mario Gabelli a major shareholder in fisher broadcasting, who owns komo4 might just own stocks pharmaceutical companies who produce the flue vaccines. Hmmm???
in still other news, Larry Silversten and others profited a handsome 6 bil for double indemnity clause in their insurance coverage for TERRORISMS - IMAGINE THAT!
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. [pan back to the GEICO lizard...]
 @SchönLicht What a frightening world you must live in to see a conspiracy behind every shadow.Â
 @skullcrusher  @SchönLicht Or the facts, you decide.  Continue to be naive to these things.  Pay your $25 and let them shoot you up with...... Well, who really knows.Â
 @The206  @SchönLicht You do realize that tinfoil hats cause premature hair loss, right?
 @Rockberry I have many reasons why I don't get the flu.  Some of those reasons revolve around the ingredients in the actual flu vaccine.
 @Landshark Okay, so you don't get the FLU shot because you think it's only about making money. Good for you. I don't get it because I am lazy and I will just suffer if I get the flu.
 @Rockberry  @The206 Yes, people way smarter and who get paid to have the vaccine created and sold to the public.
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But I'm sure it's not all about the money, right?
 @The206 Who really knows? People way smarter than you know that's who really knows.
This is a nasty bug folks, my girlfriend and i ate dinner and went to bed hrs later, everything was fine, 3am she wakes me up with the worst stomach pain she has ever felt and she knows pain, 1 hip surgery and 2 surgery's for endometriosis, anyways 10 min later she is throwing up everywhere so i drove her to the swedish er. They initially thought it was appendicitis because of the symptoms and nausea/pain, after blood tests they still were not 100% sure, they wanted to do a CT scan but we turned it down due to risk and cost. Long story short. After hrs of fluids and anti-nausea meds we finally went home with anti-nausea meds and she was still throwing up, this is a nasty stomach flu, with little or no warning (in some cases) , stay safe everyone.
 @hinterland Food poisoning?
 @Landshark No diarrhea, just vomiting and intense stomach pain, followed by body aches and a slight fever. Doubt it was food poisoning, that what i thought at first.Â
 @hinterland  @Landshark Gastroenteritis. Viral. Going around.
 @hinterland I'm just curious - what is the risk of a CT scan? I can understand the cost though. That does sound awful - I hope she feels better now. Did you catch it? I sure hope not!
 @Julia It is a very intense amount of radiation exposure you should limit the amount of them in your lifetime.  You know your body and in this case she chose to ride it out. I was lucky and didn't catch it, knock on wood.
@DT ditto what you said. >_
A little perspective: Â The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-1919 killed an estimated 20 to 40 million people worldwide, at least as many as died in WW-I, with nearly 700,000 dying in the USA. Â
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http://virus.stanford.edu/uda/
Ah once again the foolish people use the emergency room for basic illnesses that can be handled at home, or dealt with by your own doctor. Seriously.. unless you catch a flu in the first 48 hours, all the ER will do is tell you to go home, stay hydrated, and sleep. Â The anti-viral drugs work only if you take them right away in the first few days. Â The majority of people with the flu need to just sleep and stay hydrated. Instead they bundle themselves and their whole family and head off to a clinic or ER to infect everyone else. Â Or worse yet.. as I've been witnessing, they take their germ laden kids to the store with them, when they're too sick to go to school. Â The worst seem to be teens. parents don't make teens stay home when they're sick, so you see them out coughing on everyone, or at school immediately after having norovirus or the flu, while they're still contagious. Â Get a flu shot. Wash your hands ALL the time. Stay home if you have a fever. Stay home if you have a terrible cough. Cover your mouth when you cough. Â Pretty basic stuff, folks. But I still see parents at restaurants reaching over and eating off their kid's sandwich and handing their soda to their kids to share. Or in the bathrooms not washing hands. Â It's not rocket science, folks.Â
 @DT Or there are the parents like a couple in our neighborhood who don't like their kids to be at home so the kids have shown up at our house with the flu/some other nasty virus because their parents didn't want them in the house "bugging them". Good lord.
I'm never going outside again!!!!!!!! I'm so scared!!!!!! (good job media.......fear factor instilled)
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two thumbs down.
Eat good food. STAY AWOL from sugar.
You'll be fine esp if you wash your hands!
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 @Harley-H.S.C. Yep, better stay home and keep reading articles on KOMO!  :)
 @Harley-H.S.C. You can still get sick staying home. My daughter brought home the cold to me.Â
 @PrairieDawn Gee......so much for my bubble. Thanks a lot! ;-)
AAAAGHHHHH!!!!!!
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Three people a month have died from the flu since last September.
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Good grief. Can we PLEASE concentrate on the stuff that matters?
 @bobalouie Alright. Read this s l o w l y because It seems this whole 'internet news' thing appears to be new to you: You see... KOMO intends to (more or less) objectively bring a broad spectrum of news to a wide ranging segment of society. AND... the the neat thing about the internets is that when you have need for MORE information because what you're reading is redundant knowledge to you, then you can research it on (are you still with me?) MORE internets!*Â
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*see search bar on top of screen
I don't have a problem with the way KOMO brings the news, but to me, the "objectively" part gets lost in some of the "fear inducing" style of writing... like the title to this article for example. ;)Â They are after eyeballs online, so they can sell page views to advertisers, because they run a media business... pure and simple.
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If they were simply reporting objectively, there would probably be fewer comments and fewer eyeballs, I would guess.
Everybody panic and immediately head to your local hospital where you will be as far away from sick people as possible.
 @lakeview LOL!!!!
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 @lakeview LOL!