Flu Sufferers Jam ERs, Doctors' Offices

The flu bug is now considered a widespread problem in half of the country, and it's resulting in jammed emergency rooms.

Some patients are having to wait eight hours to see a doctor even though doctors say there's little they can do except treat the symptoms. A spokesman for Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville said what it boils down to is "there's no treatment that will make flu go away."

Doctors say most flu sufferers should not go to the hospital, where they risk spreading it to others. Some ERs are handing out paper masks.

"The [patients] coming in with flu symptoms, the vast majority do not have the flu. In fact, very few of them do have influenza," said Dr. William Jaquis, who is the chief of emergency Medial Services at Baltimore's Sinai Hosptial.

"It's important if you have underlying illnesses to take it a little more seriously, or if it seems different to take it a little more seriously. Most people don't have the flu, they just have a viral illness that's making them sick," Jaquis said.

So when should a patient make a trip to the emergency room? Sinai officials said if you think you have flu, you should contact your primary care doctor first to make the decision.

A doctor at an urgent care clinic in Weaverville, N.C., said he hasn't seen it this bad, this early, in more than 20 years.

But Dr. Peter Beilenson, Baltimore health commissioner, tried to ease fears over the flu Tuesday, saying this flu season is not unusual.

"There's an awful lot of hype going on in part because of two dozen or so deaths around the country, but it is really early to tell if it's more serious or severe or bigger than earlier because we're way early in the season. It could be peaking early or we could have more cases this year," Beilenson said.

Thousands of people die from flu in a typical year, including more than 90 children under 5. The government says it's gotten reports that about three dozen children of all ages have died this year.

"It is very serious; however, from a statistical standpoint, it has not reached what we call an epidemic threshold," said Christine Pearson, a spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

And at least three new deaths were confirmed this week, including one child.

The coroner in York County, S.C., reported two deaths. A 6-year-old boy died 1½ weeks ago, but his has just been conclusively linked to the flu. The illness is also blamed in the death of a 22-year-old college student. The coroner said both victims had other health problems before getting the flu.

Flu also is believed to have contributed to the death of a 19-year-old man in Virginia.

School nurses in central Pennsylvania are seeing as many as 80 students a day and sending home dozens. That's not counting the ones who stayed home from school at the beginning of the day.

School nurses are used to seeing students with the flu, but this year the outbreak is hitting a larger number of young people and earlier in the year.

So what can parents be doing to help keep their child healthy?

"There are a lot of things they can do. Probably the best is to keep them home. What's happening is they wake up, they feel better, may not have a fever, may not be coughing, so they come to school and end up being sent home," school nurse Marsha Bowen said.

Some other tips to help keep students healthy:

• Wash your hands often.
• Stay hydrated by drinking plenty of water.
• Stay well rested to keep your immune system strong.

Communion Hygiene Nothing To Sneeze At

Reflecting the severity of this year's flu epidemic, Catholic church officials in parts of the San Francisco Bay area have abandoned some of their normal Communion procedures -- such as sharing a chalice of wine and placing wafers on parishioners' tongues.

A spokesman for the archdiocese said people recognize that this might be the worst flu epidemic in 20 years.

The archbishop did not require the new procedures to be followed, but urged individual churches to do so based on "common sense."

At churches that adopted the new procedures, parishioners were told to take the communion wafer in their hands, which was already the practice in some churches.

Some churches also normally allow parishioners to sip from a chalice of wine during communion, but that practice too has been curtailed.

As part of the new guidelines, parishioners were also urged to refrain from shaking hands during the "sign of peace" and from holding hands during the Lord's Prayer.