Oh, who am I kidding? Meanwhile, dead babies (boldface mine):

Flu is now widespread in 46 states and has killed 26 children, health officials said today.

“This year is shaping up to be a bad one, particularly for people 65 and older,” says Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Children under age 5 are also at high risk of hospitalization, particularly babies under 6 months, who are too young to be vaccinated.

Flu is hitting the USA especially hard this year for two reasons.

First, the dominant flu strain in circulation is H3N2, a type that tends to cause twice as many hospitalizations and deaths as other strains for flu, Frieden says. Hospitalization rates have risen to 92 per 100,000 people, compared to 52 hospitalizations per 100,000 in a typical year.

A ‘bad’* influenza season happens every few years, and yet we don’t make reducing these deaths a priority. In the U.S., no infants lost their lives due to Ebola virus. Just saying.

*As if around ‘only’ 5,000 deaths is ‘good’.