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**the doctor** · May 26, 2009, 04:23 PM

Re: New York City - 2 More Deaths ("Not Medically Attended)

I guess if you look hard enough almost everyone has some underlying medical condition. Still it is curious to me that virtually all the deaths so far reported in the US were complicated by pre-existing medical conditions. If indeed this is true, why are we not seeing more deaths among the frail elderly?

As I recall, there were two deaths in CA that occurred in early April of young people without pre-existing health conditions that were thought to be due to flu in retrospect but "not confirmed". Does anyone know the autopsy results on these two deaths or any other information? I am pretty sure these two were buried before we knew anything about Novel H1N1 Flu. They might not have been autopsied if the attending physician signed the death certificate and provided a proximal cause of death. This may well be what occurred. The coroner only requires autopsies when people die unexpectedly, especially when not hospitalized or under unusual circumstances.

We also have no closure on the cyanotic infant who died in NYC that has apparently not been counted as a flu death. It would be helpful for the autopsy results for this infant to be released by the coroner.

GW

**Skatman** · May 26, 2009, 04:41 PM

Re: New York City - 2 More Deaths ("Not Medically Attended)

Moved

**Dark Horse** · May 26, 2009, 06:49 PM

Re: New York City - 2 More Deaths ("Not Medically Attended)

I hate it when they give so little generic information. I don't care about their names, where they lived, what hospital declared them DOA. I want to know whether they worked in the NYC shcool system and in what capacity. I want to know why they didn't get help before they died. Those facts should not violate patient privacy, but they do violate the public's right to know the truth.

Now I'm wondering if the emergency rooms are too overloaded to take new cases: 2,000 per day! Wow!

I also wonder that with the 131 hospital admissions that Frieden volunteered today, up from 94 on Sunday, is how many are related to the school system. I hope that some intelligent reporter asked that question.

Does anyone have a link to a video of the entire Frieden press conference? He is definitely misleading the public with his press conferences. For example, he has stated that H1N1 is milder than the seasonal flu when the CDC today when asked about studies about children on ventilators by a knowledgeable reporter, mentioned 50-100 pediatric deaths depending on the year, which were examined by CDC for risk factors on allegedly healthy children. So if CDC is admitting to anywhere from 50 to 100 pediatric deaths, depending on each flu season, then this bogus 36,000 people who die from season flu every year is a highly misleading number -- and Frieden -- I hope -- knows that.

I understand from written reports that these latest two deaths may have been unattended and wonder why. Did their doctors tell them not to go to the emergency room? Did they get violently ill, like the recent toddler in NYC and not make it to the emergency room or not make it in time? I'll bet you that there is a story in at least one of these two recent cases that the NYC health department prefers that you do not hear.

The NYC health department does not want you to hear about people related to schools dying. God forbid, that teachers like Judy Trunell in Texans or asst. prinicpals like Michael Wiener are the new canaries in the mines. They don't want you to hear that emergency rooms may be overloaded and people are being discouraged to go to them, especially if they are undocumented immigrants.

My experience as a former news editor with a group of excellent national investigative reporters is that I learned that most local reporters, particularly ones from TV stations, that show up at news conference are completely clueless on whatever the subject matter the news conference is about. They have no idea what questions to ask.

Now, as we learn from the interview between our Flutrackers' Sharon Sanders and Michael Osterholm, the science editors and contributors are on the wane because of the pervasive meltdown of the newspaper media economy. Now, unhappily, when the public needs them the most. I fear that this situation will eventually cost American lives: we are left with just a few knowledgeable reporters like Helen Branson, Maggie Fox, etc. to hopefully ask the right questions and report the truth when governments manage the information.

**Siegfried X** · May 26, 2009, 06:59 PM

NY: 2 more dead; thousands visit emergency rooms

The victims didn't even make it to the hospital. The emergency rooms sound like total chaos. As was posted over the weekend, the NY authorities are asking doctors to prescribe TamiFlu over the phone without even seeing the patients.

2 More With Swine Flu Die, City Confirms

Two more New York City residents ? a 41-year-old woman from Queens and a 34-year-old man from Brooklyn ? have died after contracting swine flu, bringing the total number of city fatalities related to the disease to four...

?In these two cases, the deaths were not medically attended, and so the full history is not yet known,? he said. ?They either died at home or could not be resuscitated when they were brought in.? ...

Normally, a typical city emergency room records ?not more than a couple of hundred visits a day,? but now, some have been reporting ?more than 2,000 per day,? Dr. Frieden said...

since the United States, Mexico and Canada are testing only a tiny fraction of the flus seen by doctors, the real number of global cases is likely to be in the hundreds of thousands. Most flu pandemics ultimately infect about one-third of the world, but take about two years to do so, officials said...

**Snicklefritz** · May 26, 2009, 08:32 PM

Re: New York City - 2 More Deaths ("Not Medically Attended)

Dark Horse said:

Does anyone have a link to a video of the entire Frieden press conference? He is definitely misleading the public with his press conferences. For example, he has stated that H1N1 is milder than the seasonal flu when the CDC today when asked about studies about children on ventilators by a knowledgeable reporter, mentioned 50-100 pediatric deaths depending on the year, which were examined by CDC for risk factors on allegedly healthy children. So if CDC is admitting to anywhere from 50 to 100 pediatric deaths, depending on each flu season, then this bogus 36,000 people who die from season flu every year is a highly misleading number -- and Frieden -- I hope -- knows that.

I don't really see any contradiction. But, like you, I haven't seen the press conference. The numbers quoted by CDC are not exactly an 'admission'. These numbers have been stated for a very long time. There are 50-100 pediatric deaths every year from seasonal influenza. I'm not sure where the contradiction is with the 36,000 figure. It simply means that most of the rest of the deaths each year are from the elderly population -also not news.

So, I'm not really seeing where Frieden is misleading anyone. But, that's just my opinion as a lay person.

**theforeigner** · May 26, 2009, 09:46 PM

80-100 hospitalized in NY with H1N1 since May 23

Quote from the newsarticle:

Over the last five days, he said, 20 to 25 people a day have been hospitalized with the flu. Before the weekend, the city had recorded only 57 hospitalizations for flu during the entire preceding 30 days.

so if we do the math:

80-100 persons have been hospitalized with H1N1 since saturday May 23, in New York alone !!!

So how many all together in US???

We need more information on the patients who has been hospitalized !

Age ? symptoms? condition? how many on ventilator? ect

I?m getting angry that authorities don?t share thise kinds of info because IMO the public is in their right to know what is going on with this situation.

nytimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/nyregion/27flu.html?_r=1

2 More With Swine Flu Die, City Says

By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS
Published: May 26, 2009
Two more New Yorkers have died with confirmed cases of swine flu, the city?s health commissioner said on Tuesday, bringing the city?s total number of deaths related to the virus to four. Emergency room visits and hospitalizations also continued to rise.

The commissioner, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, said the two latest casualties, a 41-year-old woman in Queens and a 34-year-old man in Brooklyn, were linked to the H1N1 virus by lab tests completed on Monday and Tuesday. Both patients had underlying health conditions that put them more at risk, he said. He added that he could not say officially whether the flu had caused their deaths until autopsies were finished. Both died on Friday.

Officials have cited underlying conditions as a factor in all four deaths in the city, but they have not revealed those conditions, citing medical confidentiality.

Five more public schools were closed on Tuesday because of suspected swine flu cases, while more than a dozen that had been closed were reopened.

?It?s good that they?re back because they were missing a lot of school days, but in a way it?s frightening,? said Elizabeth Rosa, 33, a home attendant, after seeing off her daughter, Jasilyn, 11, and son, Kristian, 8, at the entrance of Public School 19 in Corona, Queens. ?When I kissed them goodbye I thought, ?Is it going to be O.K.? Is the school safe?? ?

Dr. Frieden, speaking at a news conference at the health department, noted that both patients who died were relatively young. Health officials have said that there is some evidence that people born before 1957 may have been exposed to a similar virus and may have some immunity to the novel strain of flu that is circulating.

Hospitals that normally get about 200 visits to the emergency room each day are getting 2,000 per day, he said, and more than 25,000 people have gone to emergency rooms over the past month. The numbers are highest in Queens, but are increasing in Brooklyn and, to a lesser extent, in the Bronx and Manhattan.

Over the last five days, he said, 20 to 25 people a day have been hospitalized with the flu. Before the weekend, the city had recorded only 57 hospitalizations for flu during the entire preceding 30 days.

Dr. Frieden said the numbers of emergency room visits have been rising over the past week, perhaps driven by the publicity surrounding the deaths, but also by the pervasiveness of the virus through the general population.

To put the current situation in perspective, Dr. Frieden said that in a regular flu season, 400,000 to 1 million New Yorkers get the flu, and about a third of them never even realize it.

Of those who have gone to the emergency room, fewer than 1 in 50 needed to be admitted to the hospital, Dr. Frieden said. ?The vast majority of people going to the hospital emergency department probably shouldn?t be going,? Dr. Frieden said. Similarly, he said, a spot check of schools with high absenteeism showed that two-thirds of the children who were kept home were not sick.

The pressure on emergency rooms could be seen on Tuesday at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, where many sick parents came in with sick children. The hospital created a flu clinic in an area that usually accommodates patients who have been admitted and are waiting for a bed. It was filled on Tuesday with people in masks being evaluated for flu.

Last year in May, the Maimonides emergency room saw an average of 263 patients a day. On Monday, emergency room doctors saw 480 patients, including 233 children.

?The consensus among these physicians,? said Dr. Steven J. Davidson, the chairman of the hospital?s emergency medicine department, ?is that the influenza is mild but the patients are unusually scared.?

While the ailments that may have made the four New Yorkers who died more vulnerable to the flu have not been identified, federal and city health officials have released a list of conditions that increase the risk from flu. They include being older than 65 or younger than 2; respiratory ailments like asthma or emphysema; a weakened immune system because of pregnancy, diabetes or immune-suppressing drugs like steroids; tuberculosis; heart disease; kidney disease; and morbid obesity.

With reports of new flu cases tapering off around the country ? except in New York, New Jersey and New England ? federal health officials said on Tuesday that they would concentrate on tracking the swine flu?s progress in the Southern Hemisphere and preparing for a surge of cases in the fall.

Outside of the Northeast, reports of people with flu symptoms who visited doctors and hospitals dropped to normal levels for late May, said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of immunization and respiratory disease for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Although Dr. Schuchat would not say that the flu had peaked for the season, she said the country was ?at a transition point? and officials would look ahead to the next season, which usually begins in November.

Since the flu was identified in New York in late April, the city has closed 42 schools in 31 buildings, Dr. Frieden said. Schools have generally been closed for five days.

Since then, 25 have reopened, including about 20 on Tuesday. Most of the newly reopened schools had more than 85 percent attendance on Tuesday, although more than a quarter of the students at Public School 35 in Hollis, Queens, were absent. The handful of schools that reopened on Friday also appeared to have resumed normal routines, with more than 90 percent in attendance, according to the Department of Education?s Web site.

A spokeswoman for the department, Marge Feinberg, said that the overall attendance rate in the city was 82 percent on Tuesday, compared with 87 percent on May 4, before the flu had struck many students. The attendance rate in Queens was 82.6 percent on Tuesday, compared with 88.5 percent at the beginning of May.

Five additional schools are to be closed on Wednesday until Monday: P.S. 811, a special education school in Little Neck, Queens; P.S. 231, a special education school inside P.S. 180 in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn (the rest of the building is open); P.S. 369 in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn; P.S. 68 in Wakefield, the Bronx; and the Audubon School (P.S. 128) in Washington Heights.

Reporting was contributed by Ann Farmer, Donald G. McNeil Jr., Jennifer Medina and Mathew R. Warren.

**theforeigner** · May 26, 2009, 10:16 PM

Re: 80-100 hospitalized in NY with H1N1 since May 23

Originally posted by theforeigner View Post

Quote from the newsarticle:

Over the last five days, he said, 20 to 25 people a day have been hospitalized with the flu. Before the weekend, the city had recorded only 57 hospitalizations for flu during the entire preceding 30 days.

so if we do the math:

80-100 persons have been hospitalized with H1N1 since saturday May 23, in New York alone !!!

So how many all together in US???

We need more information on the patients who has been hospitalized !

Age ? symptoms? condition? how many on ventilator? ect

I´m getting angry that authorities don´t share thise kinds of info because IMO the public is in their right to know what is going on with this situation.

nytimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/nyregion/27flu.html?_r=1

2 More With Swine Flu Die, City Says

By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS
Published: May 26, 2009
Two more New Yorkers have died with confirmed cases of swine flu, the city’s health commissioner said on Tuesday, bringing the city’s total number of deaths related to the virus to four. Emergency room visits and hospitalizations also continued to rise.

The commissioner, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, said the two latest casualties, a 41-year-old woman in Queens and a 34-year-old man in Brooklyn, were linked to the H1N1 virus by lab tests completed on Monday and Tuesday. Both patients had underlying health conditions that put them more at risk, he said. He added that he could not say officially whether the flu had caused their deaths until autopsies were finished. Both died on Friday.

Officials have cited underlying conditions as a factor in all four deaths in the city, but they have not revealed those conditions, citing medical confidentiality.

Five more public schools were closed on Tuesday because of suspected swine flu cases, while more than a dozen that had been closed were reopened.

“It’s good that they’re back because they were missing a lot of school days, but in a way it’s frightening,” said Elizabeth Rosa, 33, a home attendant, after seeing off her daughter, Jasilyn, 11, and son, Kristian, 8, at the entrance of Public School 19 in Corona, Queens. “When I kissed them goodbye I thought, ‘Is it going to be O.K.? Is the school safe?’ ”

Dr. Frieden, speaking at a news conference at the health department, noted that both patients who died were relatively young. Health officials have said that there is some evidence that people born before 1957 may have been exposed to a similar virus and may have some immunity to the novel strain of flu that is circulating.

Hospitals that normally get about 200 visits to the emergency room each day are getting 2,000 per day, he said, and more than 25,000 people have gone to emergency rooms over the past month. The numbers are highest in Queens, but are increasing in Brooklyn and, to a lesser extent, in the Bronx and Manhattan.

Over the last five days, he said, 20 to 25 people a day have been hospitalized with the flu. Before the weekend, the city had recorded only 57 hospitalizations for flu during the entire preceding 30 days.

Dr. Frieden said the numbers of emergency room visits have been rising over the past week, perhaps driven by the publicity surrounding the deaths, but also by the pervasiveness of the virus through the general population.

To put the current situation in perspective, Dr. Frieden said that in a regular flu season, 400,000 to 1 million New Yorkers get the flu, and about a third of them never even realize it.

Of those who have gone to the emergency room, fewer than 1 in 50 needed to be admitted to the hospital, Dr. Frieden said. “The vast majority of people going to the hospital emergency department probably shouldn’t be going,” Dr. Frieden said. Similarly, he said, a spot check of schools with high absenteeism showed that two-thirds of the children who were kept home were not sick.

The pressure on emergency rooms could be seen on Tuesday at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, where many sick parents came in with sick children. The hospital created a flu clinic in an area that usually accommodates patients who have been admitted and are waiting for a bed. It was filled on Tuesday with people in masks being evaluated for flu.

Last year in May, the Maimonides emergency room saw an average of 263 patients a day. On Monday, emergency room doctors saw 480 patients, including 233 children.

“The consensus among these physicians,” said Dr. Steven J. Davidson, the chairman of the hospital’s emergency medicine department, “is that the influenza is mild but the patients are unusually scared.”

While the ailments that may have made the four New Yorkers who died more vulnerable to the flu have not been identified, federal and city health officials have released a list of conditions that increase the risk from flu. They include being older than 65 or younger than 2; respiratory ailments like asthma or emphysema; a weakened immune system because of pregnancy, diabetes or immune-suppressing drugs like steroids; tuberculosis; heart disease; kidney disease; and morbid obesity.

With reports of new flu cases tapering off around the country — except in New York, New Jersey and New England — federal health officials said on Tuesday that they would concentrate on tracking the swine flu’s progress in the Southern Hemisphere and preparing for a surge of cases in the fall.

Outside of the Northeast, reports of people with flu symptoms who visited doctors and hospitals dropped to normal levels for late May, said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of immunization and respiratory disease for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Although Dr. Schuchat would not say that the flu had peaked for the season, she said the country was “at a transition point” and officials would look ahead to the next season, which usually begins in November.

Since the flu was identified in New York in late April, the city has closed 42 schools in 31 buildings, Dr. Frieden said. Schools have generally been closed for five days.

Since then, 25 have reopened, including about 20 on Tuesday. Most of the newly reopened schools had more than 85 percent attendance on Tuesday, although more than a quarter of the students at Public School 35 in Hollis, Queens, were absent. The handful of schools that reopened on Friday also appeared to have resumed normal routines, with more than 90 percent in attendance, according to the Department of Education’s Web site.

A spokeswoman for the department, Marge Feinberg, said that the overall attendance rate in the city was 82 percent on Tuesday, compared with 87 percent on May 4, before the flu had struck many students. The attendance rate in Queens was 82.6 percent on Tuesday, compared with 88.5 percent at the beginning of May.

Five additional schools are to be closed on Wednesday until Monday: P.S. 811, a special education school in Little Neck, Queens; P.S. 231, a special education school inside P.S. 180 in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn (the rest of the building is open); P.S. 369 in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn; P.S. 68 in Wakefield, the Bronx; and the Audubon School (P.S. 128) in Washington Heights.

Reporting was contributed by Ann Farmer, Donald G. McNeil Jr., Jennifer Medina and Mathew R. Warren.

I think this post deserve a thread on its own, on the main site, due to that it first of all is about the VERY significant raise of people hospitalized in NY withing the last 4 days.

You can just remove my personal comments if they are not alowed on the main site (keep the math though

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New York City - 2 More Deaths ("Not Medically Attended)

New York City - 2 More Deaths ("Not Medically Attended)

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