Two cases of Legionnaires disease have been identified in New York, however, the cases do not seem related. Apparently Onondaga County, where the cases have popped up, get 5-15 of these types of cases per year.

In the United States, 8,000-18,000 each year are hospitalized with the disease. Symptoms are similar to that of the flu, and include “a high fever, chills, and a cough. Some people may also suffer from muscle aches and headaches.” Legionnaires consists of an infection from the Legionella bacteria.
Most cases occur in the summer and early fall months.
Image: sxc.hu.

Here’s a confusing thing about the swine flu: it has apparently spread quicker in certain areas than in others. Take a set of schools in New York, for example. Officials have now closed down in Queens because “hundreds of children went home sick with flu symptoms.” Maintenance people are now scrubbing down desks, tables, floors, etc. Basically every surface children touch.

It’s not just kids that have been infected. An assistant principle is on a ventilator, and in critical condition. The schools will be closed for at least a week.
Image: sxc.hu.

Caught an interesting article recently that wondered what happened to all of our fears about disease outbreaks. You remember the hoopla over SARS, West Nile, and the Avian flu?
For a while, that’s all anyone could talk about. We were watching the crows in our backyard closely because if you saw one dead it could mean the West Nile virus had killed it. People were buying surgical masks and staying away from standing water.
But now, just a few years later, talk of these diseases is almost nonexistent. The article questioned where this was due to an actual decline in these …read more