Flu reaches epidemic levels in N.J.
Wednesday January 9, 2013, 10:32 PM
BY BARBARA WILLIAMS
STAFF WRITER
The Record
Influenza is rampant across the nation, and New Jersey is smack in the middle of what local physicians are calling an epidemic.
“It’s here. Big time,” said Dr. Thomas Birch, president of the medical staff at Holy Name Medical Center. “When the virus comes into a community with susceptible individuals, it will literally spread like those wildfires in California that burn everything in their path.”
The onslaught of the illness marks the first time in about a decade that influenza is so prevalent this early in the year — 41 states are reporting widespread flu activity. More than 2,200 people nationwide have been hospitalized and 18 children have died, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
So many people are sick that St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center in Paterson on Monday treated a record number of patients — 514 compared with about 420 it normally sees, said Dr. Mark Rosenberg, chairman of emergency medicine at St. Joseph’s Healthcare System, which has hospitals in Paterson and Wayne.
The city hospital admitted 90 patients, up sharply from the 60 to 65 typically kept for treatment on any given day.
The flu is spreading fast — and it’s virulent, doctors said.
https://www.northjersey.com/news/bergen/Flu_in_NJ_reaches_epidemic_levels.html