[Porchdog]

I only know 2 people (coworkers) who have had the flu this year. Local hospitals have tents in their parking lots to handle the emergency room overflow.

I have never had a flu shot and I can't remember the last time I had the flu. My wife used to get one when she was teaching, none this year. My middle son is required to get a shot from the USMC - he hates that he feels congested and achy for a few days after.

If that 9-35 million statistic is correct that's 3-10% of the population being infected.

Our local paper had infection rates by county a couple weeks ago. I did the math and came up with less than a 1% infection rate which seemed suspiciously low.

This years' strain certainly has been unusually potent. I wonder if the higher death rate could be linked to other drug use - like the Xanax user above. There certainly seems to be a real explosion of that use coincident with this outbreak.